Diesel lacking for Cuba drivers as fuel used for electricity

HAVANA (AP) — Dany Pérez had spent four days in a line of vehicles waiting to fill his truck with diesel he needs for the 900-kilometre trip from Havana to his home in eastern Cuba.

Taxi driver Jhojan Rodríguez had been waiting at another station even longer — it was nearing two weeks — but he was finally near the head of the line of hundreds of vehicles in the Playa district of the capital.

Such lines have become increasingly common in Cuba, where officials apparently have been sending scarce diesel fuel to power generation plants rather than fuel stations for vehicles.

It's not the first time the island has suffered fuel shortages, but it's one of the worst.

“I have seen pretty bad situations, but not like now,” said the 46-year-old Pérez, who was eating and sleeping in his 1950s-era Chevrolet truck, which he had outfitted to haul some 40 passengers.

Drivers in the lines have tried to organise themselves by creating lists of those waiting and updating them daily as they wait for tanker trucks to arrive with fuel.

Because of the lists, those who live nearby can go home for spells — keeping track of any progress via a WhatsApp group.

“I'm a professional taxi driver. ... I pay taxes, social security. I'm legally established,” said Rodríguez, the 37-year-old owner of a gold-and-white 1954 Oldsmobile whose worn-out gasoline engine at some point had been replaced with diesel.

“My home, my family depend on this diesel.”

The recent fuel shortage largely affects diesel — used by heavy vehicles and classic cars whose original engines were long ago swapped out, often with Eastern European truck engines — rather than the gasoline used by most cars.

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