Cuba to resume production of fuel for air transport

Oil Research Centre to lead way on project.

HAVANA, Cuba, Monday March 5, 2012 – Cuba has retaken a project to provide fuel for air transportation following a 12 year break.

To accomplish this task, officials will be using a technology developed by the Oil Research Centre.

Antonio Rodriguez Molto, of the Basic Industry Ministry said the Cuban project to produce the fuel was resumed through an energy saving programme carried out in the first five years of the 21st century that enabled the use of spare kerosene for the production of turbine fuel.

The Oil Research Centre undertook the challenge to develop new formulas to make it possible to use Cuban crude.

However, the man in charge of the project, Alberto Cavado, said investments were already made to acquire and set up industrial equipment, filtration systems, special tanks and a modern analytic database to check the quality of the product.

The oil refineries of Havana, Santiago de Cuba and Cienfuegos, are participating in the production of the fuel.

The production of aviation fuel was halted in Cuba from 1993 to 2005, following the fall of the socialist block, the depression of the Cuban oil industry and the intensification of the U.S. economic blockade.  Click here to receive free news bulletins via email from Caribbean360. (View sample)