Cuba is to open an abandoned oil refinery this week and a project to expand a nickel plant will go live by the end of the year, as the island resumes industrial development after the years of crisis that followed the Soviet Union’s demise.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez will be in the southern port city of Cienfuegos on Friday to inaugurate the originally Soviet-era refinery, a 50/50 venture between the two states’ oil companies that will process 65,000 barrels a day of Venezuelan crude for the Cuban market and 14 other Caribbean countries, such as Jamaica and the Dominican Republic. Like Cuba, these are increasingly dependent on preferentially financed petroleum products from Caracas.