Hurricanes Gustav and Ike destroyed up to 2 million pounds of Cuba's best tobacco, but reserves of the leaf should cover demand for the island's premium cigars for the next year, a tobacco executive said on Wednesday.

The storms, which struck within 10 days of each other, caused major damage to the tobacco industry infrastructure, which will require a significant investment to repair, said Manuel Garcia, vice president of cigar producer Habanos S.A.

"We think that for at least the next year we should not have great difficulties with the supply of cigars because luckily for us, we have a reserve of raw material," he said at a Havana business conference.

"Undoubtedly we are going to need an important financial injection for the tobacco (industry)," he said.

Habanos, a joint venture between the Cuban government and Altadis, a unit of British-based Imperial Tobacco, produces and sells some of the world's best-known cigars, including Monte Cristo, Cohiba, Romeo y Julieta and Partagas.

It reported sales of $402 million (218 million pounds) in 2007, up from $375 million in 2006.

The Cuban government said the two storms destroyed 3,414 barns where the harvested tobacco was being cured and damaged another 1,590 when they ripped through the western province of Pinar del Rio, where Cuba's top tobacco is grown.

Between 1.6 million and 2 million pounds of tobacco were estimated to have been destroyed.

Garcia said the cost of replacing or repairing buildings was being determined and that longer-term effects on tobacco supply would depend on the speed of rebuilding

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Despite the best efforts of his team and nearly 42k of top-quality tobacco, Cuban Jose Castelar's world record attempt just ran out of puff.





The 64-year-old, who learned to make cigars at the age of five, rolled a giant stogie in Havana that he hoped could be called the world's longest cigar.


But his 30m attempt, while enormous, fell short of the previous world record of 41.2m, rolled by Puerto Rican cigar-maker Patricio Pena last year.


Castelar's instructions needed to be passed down the line by his four assistants as they rolled the progressively darker tobacco leaves together and wrapped the cigar in paper to protect it.


The stogie stretched across 14 tables end-to-end.


Castelar, a former world-record holder in 2001, 2003 and 2005, was not too crestfallen however, as competition between the cigar makers is certainly stiff but also friendly.


"I'm working to take it to the maximum," he said. "We'll be back in two years with a longer one."


The cigar, which is to be shown at an international tourism fair on Friday, is more than 2ins thick and can never actually be smoked.


Rolled for display at government-run cigar shops, it will be stored under glass, like others Castelar has made in previous years.


Hand-rolled cigars are a traditional Cuban souvenir, with the communist state selling $402m worth of them last year.

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