Cuba's communist-run government shut down schools and non-essential industry and sent most government workers home on Friday (October 18) in a bid to conserve energy and stem blackouts that now exceed 12 hours a day for millions of people across the island.

Cuba has seen dramatically long power outages even for an island accustomed to devastating shortages. Entire provinces have gone without light for hours, and many locations outside the capital Havana go with less than six hours of electricity a day.

Officials with Cuba's National Electric Union (UNE) said early on Friday that all non-vital government services would be suspended. Schools of all levels, from grade to university, were shuttered through Sunday. Recreational and cultural activities, including night clubs, were also ordered closed. The government said only essential employees of the state-run food and healthcare industries should report to work on Friday.

Prime Minister Manuel Marrero spoke on national TV late on Thursday, blaming the blackouts on a perfect storm well-known to most Cubans - deteriorating infrastructure, fuel shortages and rising demand.

While demand for electricity grows, fuel supply has all but dried up on an island that produces comparatively little of its own.

Cuba's largest oil supplier, Venezuela, has reduced shipments to the island to an average of 32,600 barrels per day (bpd) in the first nine months of the year, about half of the 60,000 bpd sent in the same period of 2023, according to vessel monitoring data and internal shipping documents from Venezuela's state company PDVSA.

Strong wind and heavy seas that began with the passage of Hurricane Milton last week have crippled the island's ability to deliver scarce fuel from boats offshore to its power plants, officials said.

Cuba's government also has long blamed the U.S. Cold War-era embargo, as well as a fresh round of sanctions under former President Donald Trump, for difficulties in acquiring fuel and spare parts to operate its oil-fired plants.

Electricity officials said they nonetheless expect power generation to improve in the coming days as the weather allows fuel from prior deliveries to be distributed around the Caribbean's largest island. - report from Reuters