Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel emphasized that this achievement breaks “a taboo that existed in the country, that domestic crude oil could not be refined, that it could not be used for other purposes, and we practically condemned it to be used directly in a group of thermoelectric plants.”

  The center’s research is an alternative to gasoline shortage caused by the tightening of the US embargo, which includes an unprecedented energy blockade, according to the Presidency of the Republic.

  Engineer Irenaldo Perez, deputy director of Cupet, explained that thermoconversion improves the properties of heavy and extra-heavy crude oil from the northern oil-producing region by destroying some of its more complex compounds through controlled heating.

  The technique, developed over years by Ceinpet, reduces the crude’s viscosity without the need to mix it with naphtha, a product in short supply due to the fuel restrictions imposed by Washington.

  Specialists plan to install a pilot plant at the refinery in Sancti Spiritus province, with the goal of scaling up the technology and developing this proprietary innovation. A second phase will include catalytic development using Cuban laterites to reduce the sulfur content.

  Faced with the acute naphtha shortage, Cupet experts delivered a segregated, lower-viscosity domestic crude for its processing at the refinery in Santiago de Cuba, following trials that yielded positive results.

  Marketable diesel was obtained, along with naphtha used as a viscosity-reducing solvent, providing 15 days of fuel coverage for oil production in Varadero, and marketable fuel for the energy and nickel industries.

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