Holguín is one of the five provinces established in 1976 by splitting up the former province of Oriente. The others are Las Tunas, Granma, Santiago de Cuba and Guantánamo.

Located on Cuba’s northeastern coast, Holguín is the fourth-largest province in Cuba, covering 9,215.7 square kilometers (3,559.7 square miles). Its territory a combination of cultivated fertile lowlands and densely forested mountains is superbly endowed with natural resources.

The thinly populated uplands rise to a top floor of 900-1,200 meters (2,950-3,900 feet) above sea level, interrupted by smooth flat basins and gentle valleys where sugar cane, plantains and other edible vegetables are grown and where most of the population lives.

The highest point is Pico del Cristal, rising 1,231 meters (4,038 feet) at Sierra del Cristal, southeast of the town of Mayarí.

To the east lie the mountains of Sierra de Nipe, Sierra Cristal and Sierra de Moa, which mainly consist of large bodies of serpentinites, peridotites and other ultrabasics covered with lateritic weathering crusts that range from 15 to 80 feet in thickness.

Nickel, Holguín’s main natural resource, is also one of Cuba’s most important sources of foreign exchange, along with remittances.

Nickel is found here in 0.8% to 1.4% concentrations in silicated-oxidized ores including large concentrations of brown iron ore and cobalt. Ore reserves are estimated at 800 million tons, roughly 37% of world reserves.

These vast superficial nickel deposits are relatively easy to mine, but at the same time strip mining causes extensive, devastating and virtually irreversible environmental destruction to the zone’s dense forests  a combination of pine groves and rainforests that shelter a large and unique wildlife.

POPULATION

With 112.6 inhabitants per square kilometer, Holguín is one of Cuba’s most densely populated provinces. In 2011, its population was estimated at 1,037,833, or about 9.2% of Cuba’s total population of 11.28 million.

The provincial capital, also called Holguín, has 276,839 residents, making it Cuba’s fourth-largest city.

Other important cities are Moa (57,652), Banes (34,452), Mayari (29,027), San Germán (24,699), Sagua de Tánamo (23,641) and Gibara (16,136).

Due to persistent emigration, the province lost 24,947 residents between 2007 and 2011. During that time, Holguín’s population grew at an annual rate of only 0.27%, meaning that growth has virtually stagnated.

INFRASTRUCTURE

The Central Highway and the Central Railroad link Holguín with the rest of Cuba, and a dense network of secondary roads and railroad branches reaches all settlements and economic hubs. The transport infrastructure is said to be in very poor shape.

The ports of Moa and Nicaro export all of Cuba’s nickel, while Antilla, on Nipe Bay, ships around 3% of Cuba’s sugar exports. The province is served by Frank País International Airport, which is growing in importance as more tourists arrive from Europe and Canada.

AGRICULTURE

Sugar is, by far, the province’s most important crop, even after the 2002 downsizing of the industry, which left Holguín with only five active mills out of 10 that existed before.

The remaining sugar mills are Fernando de Diós (formerly Tacajó), Loynaz Hechevarría (formerly Alto Cedro), near Cueto; Ramón López Peña (formerly Báguanos); Cristino Naranjo (formerly Cacocum) and Urbano Noris (formerly San Germán), the largest in the province.

This year’s output of 151,000 tons made Holguín the second-largest sugar producer in Cuba after Villa Clara, and represented a discrete growth from 116,000 tons in 2011 but that’s barely 20% of the average 700,000 tons produced by the province annually in the late 1980s.

In 1999, the province still yielded 412,000 tons of raw sugar but back then production costs were nightmarish and Holguín’s mills ranked among the costliest in Cuba. At prevailing world raw sugar market prices, Holguín’s 2011-12 harvest was worth about $80 million, compared to $380 million in the late 1980s. Production for the 2012-13 harvest was projected at 180,000 tons of raw sugar, but Hurricane Sandy, which tore through the province in late October, has seriously dampened expectations.

As for the rest of Cuba, agricultural yields have been the Achilles’ heel behind the problems facing the sugar sector. In the late 1980s,  yields neared 45 tons of sugarcane per hectare, which translates into 5 tons of raw sugar per hectare.

In 2012, after having abandoning the poorest fields, Holguín province saw yields of 36 tons/ha, or 3.6 tons/ha of raw sugar.

Holguín also accounts for 5-10% of all coffee grown in Cuba. Coffee plantations here have the highest yields on the island, which 610 pounds of green beans per hectare (82 quintales per caballería). Even so, this is well below the 900 pounds per hectare (120 qq/caballeria) regularly attained before the 1959 revolution.

INDUSTRY

Nickel is now by far the leading industry in Cuba, and it is all located in Holguín province. In the past few years, output has declined in spite of relatively healthy world market prices. In 2010, the last year for which statistics are available, Holguín produced 69,694 metric tons of unrefined nickel down from 70,016 tons in 2009 and 8% lower than the 75,642 tons produced in 2005.

Nickel is now Cuba’s top export earner, generating an export value in excess of $1.52 billion in 2010, with nearly all output destined for Canada, Europe and China.

Two of these plants were built by U.S. companies: René Ramos Latour (formerly Nicaro Nickel Co.) in 1943, and Pedro Soto Alba (formerly Moa Nickel Co.), which began production in 1960.

The much newer Che Guevara plant was finished in 1986 in Moa with Soviet technology, but was radically refurbished later on. Construction of a fourth plant at Las Camariocas, near Moa, was halted in 1991, after it was 85% complete; the project was completely abandoned in 2000.

This old project is now being revamped by Ferroniquel SA, a Cuban-Venezuelan joint venture founded in 2007 to transform the original Soviet-made project into a stainless steel plant with annual capacity of 68,000 tons.

The $1.1 billion investment should be operational in 2013.

In the past, poor efficiency has hindered the nickel industry mainly at the Che Guevara plant where over 30 tons of oil was used to produce one ton of nickel concentrate.

Heavy investments in their 1990s have succeeded in cutting the fuel expenditure at this plant by half.

The Pedro Soto plant, which uses an acid-leaching technology and is jointly operated by the Cuban government with Canada’s Sherritt International Corp., reportedly expends $1 to produce one pound of nickel — an excellent performance by any standard.

Output at a third plant, at Nicaro, has been cut to 18,000 tons per year from a nominal capacity of 25,000 tons.

After peaking at a record high in excess of $53,000 per ton in 2007, nickel world market prices have declined to around $16,000/on, a consequence of the global economic slowdown and China’s industrial deceleration.

Bleaker world prices for nickel seem to have frozen the expansion plans for Toronto-based Sherritt at its Moa plant.

Untreated liquid and solid wastes, along with emissions to the atmosphere from the nickel refining industry, produce one of the most severely polluted zones in Cuba.

Holguín was at the heart of a vast industrial development program that saw its heyday in the 70s and 80s, but was abruptly cut after the collapse of the Soviet bloc.

The gigantic project foresaw turning the province into a steel and machinery hub of impressive proportions. Long-term aspirations projected even a clone of the Soviet-built Juraguá nuclear plant near Cienfuegos.

Ironically, as with many other gargantuan industries inspired by the Soviet model, the dream rapidly became an operational nightmare. Fidel Castro referred to this during the inauguration of the 26 of July Heroes plant in 1981: “The problem with these factories, I want to tell you, does not consist of getting them or building them. The main problem is to put them to work.”

The 60th Anniversary sugar-cane harvester factory, a Soviet-built project inaugurated in 1977, became a national symbol. With a capa-city of over 600 combines per year (in 1989 it produced 621 combines), it was a versatile installation, capable of producing a variety of complex farm machinery and spare parts.

Yet the hundreds of KTP-1 and KTP-2 harvesters manufactured here proved to be too heavy, inefficient and unreliable helping spur the collapse of Cuba’s sugar industry.

These days, the factory makes only spare parts and repairs the aging KTP combines as Cuba buys newer harvesters from Brazil.

Another giant of Holguín’s industry is the 26th of July mechanical plant, built by Bulgaria and opened in 1981 to complement the sugarcane harvester plant and also to make farm equipment and assist the steel industry.

This 84-acre behemoth with 732,000 square feet of roofed shops has met the same fate as other Cuban giant industries.

In the late 1990s, a 500-megawatt thermal power plant was built in Felton; it’s Cuba’s newest, most efficient power facility, located close enough to Holguín’s nickel-producing region to save on electric transmission costs.

TOURISM

Overseas tourism has is becoming crucial to the province’s economy, with its focus on the beach at Guardalavaca. With seven hotels containing 3,413 rooms, Guardalavaca is the No. 4 tourist hub in Cuba; other key beaches include Costa Verde and Esmeralda.
The five-star Meliá Río de Oro, with 292 rooms, is one of the highest rated by visitors in Cuba. Other large hotels include the Gaviota Playa Pesquero (944 rooms) and Gaviota Playa Costa Verde (480 rooms). The main accommodation in the city of Holguín is the three-star Hotel Pernik, with 204 rooms.