U.S. Swaps Venezuelan Fuel Oil For Russian Products
(Oilprice.com, 13.Jul.2020) — The United States has been raising its imports of fuel oil from Russia over the past year and a half after the U.S. imposed sanctions on Venezuela’s...
New Players Emerge In Venezuela Amid Sanctions
(AP, 13.Jul.2020) — As U.S. sanctions scare away the world’s largest shippers from Venezuela’s oil industry, new players are willing to brave the heightened risks and help keep socialist leader...
Venezuela’s Oil Production Sinks To 300,000 b/d
(Argus, 3.Jul.2020) — Venezuela kicked off July with only around 300,000 b/d of crude production and no oil rigs in operation, according to a series of internal operation reports from...
Venezuela Awaits New Products Cargo From Italy
(Argus, 3.Jul.2020) — Venezuela will receive another products cargo from Italy next week, highlighting the endurance of debt-related oil trade with EU companies that falls outside the scope of escalating...
Guaido Team Adds to PDVSA Ad Hoc Board
(Reuters, 1.Jul.2020) — Venezuela's opposition-held National Assembly on Tuesday named three new members to an ad hoc board of directors for state Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), which controls some of...
Politics Entangling Exile PdV Board
(Argus, 1.Jul.2020) — An "ad hoc" board of state-owned PdV that is a key part of US-backed opposition leader Juan Guaido's parallel administration is running into political resistance in the...
Venezuelan Crude Arrives At Milazzo
(Argus, 1.Jul.2020) — A cargo of Venezuelan crude has arrived at the 235,000 b/d refinery run by Italy's integrated Eni and Kuwait's state-owned KPC at Milazzo, Sicily. Around 1mn bl...
Venezuela’s Oil Exports Sank In June To 77-year Low: Data
(Reuters, 1.Jul.2020) — Venezuela’s oil exports slumped in June to their lowest level since 1943 after half a dozen tankers, looking to avoid the threat of U.S. sanctions, sailed away...
Venezuela Tightens Grip On Fuel Stations
(Reuters, 28.Jun.2020) — Venezuelan state oil firm PDVSA has told independent gas station operators it can revoke their licences “at any time”, only weeks after it cut generous fuel subsidies...
PDVSA Weighs Plan To Pay For Refinery Work With Fuel
(Reuters, 25.Jun.2020) — Officials from Venezuelan state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela have spoken with private contractors about paying for work fixing the country's refineries with fuel and byproducts, a...
Tankers With Venezuelan Oil Stuck At Sea
(Reuters, 24.Jun.2020) — Tankers carrying nearly two months worth of Venezuelan oil output are stuck at sea as global refiners shun the nation’s crude to avoid falling foul of U.S....
Tankers With Venezuelan Oil Unable To Unload
(Sputnik, 24.Jun.2020) — Earlier this month, the US Treasury Department announced that it was imposing Venezuela-related sanctions against four companies and four oil tankers belonging to these entities over their...
Russia Backs Venezuela In Fight Against US
(Newsweek, 24.Jun.2020) — Russia vowed to support Venezuela in its campaign to counter U.S.-backed regime change after the Pentagon sailed warships nearby in the Caribbean to challenge the Latin American...
Venezuela Wooed Texas Lawmaker To Ease Sanctions
(AP, 20.Jun.2020) — Venezuela's socialist government tried to recruit then-Congressman Pete Sessions to broker a meeting with the CEO of Exxon Mobil at the same time it was secretly paying...
End of Venezuela’s Oil Fortune Looms Over Maduro
(Bloomberg, 20.Jun.2020) — Oil revenue, the financial lifeline of Venezuela, is quickly drying up, adding to the growing instability of Nicolas Maduro’s embattled regime. Crude exports that once accounted for...
Guaido Team Favoring COP In Citgo Fight: Update
(Argus, 19.Jun.2020) — Another senior Venezuelan opposition figure has resigned following the government's leak of a strategy to favor ConocoPhillips in an escalating battle for Venezuelan state-owned PdV's US refining...
US Sanctions Mexican Cos. Helping Venezuelan Oil
(Bloomberg, 18.Jun.2020) — The U.S. Treasury Department levied sanctions on Mexican trading company Libre Abordo SA de CV for buying Venezuelan oil via oil-for-humanitarian-aid agreements with the embattled country. Libre...
Treasury Targets Sanctions Evasion Network Supporting Corrupt Venezuelan Actors
(US Department of Treasury, 18.Jun.2020) — Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated three individuals and eight foreign entities, and identified two vessels...
Venezuela’s Oil Exports Fall As Contracts Get Suspended
(Reuters, 16.Jun.2020) — Venezuela’s oil exports have fallen nearly 28% in the first half of June, on course for the lowest level in over 70 years as tanker owners and...
Iran To Keep Offloading Fuel Glut To Venezuela
(Reuters, 15.Jun.2020) — Iran could send two to three cargoes a month in regular gasoline sales to ally Venezuela, sources say, helping offload domestic oversupply but risking retaliation from U.S....
Venezuela’s Oil Production In Free Fall
(Energy Analytics Institute, 15.Jun.2020) — Venezuela’s production of crude oil continues in a free fall, reaching 411,900 barrels per day on 15 June 2020, down by 206,800 barrels per day...
Venezuela’s Oil Plunges To Lowest Level Since 1945
(Bloomberg, 13.Jun.2020) — Oil production in Venezuela, the country with the world’s largest reserves of crude, has fallen to a 75-year low with U.S. sanctions continuing to cripple the country’s...
In Venezuela, One Rig Works World’s Biggest Reserves
(Bloomberg, 11.Jun.2020) — Venezuela’s fall from oil superpower to failing producer can be illustrated in one image: a single drilling rig working the world’s largest oil reserves. As fields across...
Wave Of Venezuelan Oil Stalled At Sea
(Argus, 10.Jun.2020) — Vessel tracking data shows a fleet of 44 international tankers on the water holding 40.5mn bl of Venezuelan oil as shipowners face growing risk of US sanctions...
Restart Of Virgin Islands Refinery Delayed Again
(Argus, 10.Jun.2020) — The restart of an oil refinery in the US Virgin Islands is poised for another delay because of pandemic restrictions. The refinery was supposed to reopen in...
Guaido Team Promises Fuel Surge In Venezuela
(Argus, 8.Jun.2020) — Venezuela's US-backed political opposition is promising to restore stable fuel supply in two weeks if it takes power, kicking off with crude-for-products swaps. In an initial stage,...
Venezuela’s Gasoline System Fails To End Epic Lines
(Reuters, 7.Jun.2020) — Hundreds of Venezuelans queued up in miles-long lines to try to fill their cars with subsidized gasoline over the weekend, a week after President Nicolas Maduro launched...
Chevron Oil Tangled In US Sanctions On Venezuela
(Reuters, 5.Jun.2020) — A Chevron Corp crude oil cargo has become embroiled in U.S. sanctions on shipping companies for violating restrictions on doing business with Venezuela, the company confirmed on...
OPEC+ To Meet Saturday On Extending Cuts
(Reuters, 5.Jun.2020) — OPEC and its allies led by Russia will meet on Saturday to discuss extending record oil production cuts and to push laggards such as Iraq and Nigeria...
Iran’s Message To US With Venezuela Oil Shipments
(Financial Times, 4.Jun.2020) — For the Islamic republic, it was a mission fraught with risk: send five Iranian-flagged fuel tankers through some of the world’s most crucial maritime gateways to...
US Sanctions Four Firms For Transporting Venezuelan Oil
(Aljazeera, 2.Jun.2020) — The United States Treasury Department on Tuesday said it had sanctioned four shipping firms for transporting Venezuelan oil, the latest escalation in Washington's effort to depose socialist...
Venezuela’s Oil Exports Sink To 17-year Low On Sanctions
(Reuters, 2.Jun.2020) — Venezuela’s oil exports plummeted in May to their lowest level since 2003 as U.S. sanctions choked exports and two Mexican firms that had acted as intermediaries for...
Mexico Probes Libre Abordo Pact With Venezuela
(Reuters, 2.Jun.2020) — The Mexican government’s financial crime department is investigating Libre Abordo, a Mexico-based firm that received millions of barrels of Venezuelan crude under an oil-for-food pact, in a...
CITGO Proposes $750mn Private Offering
(Citgo, 2.Jun.2020) — Citgo Petroleum Corporation has commenced a private offering exempt from the registration requirements of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, of $750 million aggregate principal amount of...
Venezuela Rolls Out Two-tiered Fuel Pricing
(Argus, 1.Jun.2020) — A two-tiered gasoline pricing system rolled out by Venezuela today maintains generous subsidies for limited volumes but allows private-sector operators to charge international prices for imports. The...
Libre Abordo Announces Bankruptcy
(Reuters, 31.May.2020) — Mexico-based company Libre Abordo said on Sunday it was bankrupt and that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro had terminated an oil-for-food agreement that had allowed the firm to...
Venezuela, In Historic Shift, Scales Back Fuel Subsidy
(WSJ, 31.May.2020) — The regime of Nicolás Maduro, grappling with intense gasoline shortages, said it will scale back its longstanding fuel subsidy and privatize service stations, in a significant shift...
Trinidad-Venezuela Ties Omit Natural Gas For Now
(Argus, 29.May.2020) — Trinidad and Tobago declared explicit support for Venezuela's US-sanctioned government this week, but the political ties will not revive natural gas cooperation in the near term because...
Tanker Petunia Accompanied By Air Force
(Energy Analytics Institute, Piero Stewart, 29.May.2020) — Venezuelan military aircraft accompanied the Iranian tanker Petunia to a dock located on the OPEC country’s shores, announced Venezuelan official Vladimir Padrino L....
Tanker Faxon Docks At Guaraguao Complex
(Energy Analytics Institute, Piero Stewart, 29.May.2020) — The Iranian tanker Faxon, the fourth of a flotilla of five, docked at the Guaraguao refining complex in Anzoátegui state in Eastern Venezuela,...
US Threatens Sanctions to Deter Iranian Tankers
(Dow Jones, 29.May.2020) — U.S. authorities have threatened tankers carrying Iranian fuel to Venezuela with sanctions, aiming to thwart a burgeoning economic alliance between two of America's biggest rivals. Two...
Maduro Considers Charging Citizens More For Petrol
(Al Jazeera, 28.May.2020) — Venezuela's president hints that he could start charging for petrol, which is usually practically free for citizens. Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro said on Wednesday his government...
Q&A: PdV Exile Board Has ‘Levers’ To Keep Citgo
(Argus, 28.May.2020) — Luis Pacheco is chairman of a parallel board trying to exert control over the future of Venezuela's state-owned PdV. Appointed by the National Assembly led by opposition...
Op-Ed: My Love Affair With Tulsa University
(Gustavo Coronel, 27.May2020) — An April morning in 1951, I left New York City for Tulsa, Oklahoma. I had been studying English for 15 weeks at Queens College before going...
Maduro Sends Iranian Oil To Cuba
(Panam Post, 27.May.2020) — A Cuban vessel arrived in Venezuela to allegedly provide the island gasoline that has just arrived from Iran. According to the Marine Traffic portal, this is...
Maduro Vows To Raise Venezuelan Gasoline Price
(Reuters, 27.May.2020) — Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Wednesday pledged to begin charging citizens for gasoline, as the fourth cargo of a five-tanker flotilla bringing fuel from Iran approached the...
Third Iranian Fuel Cargo Approaches Venezuela
(Reuters, 26.May.2020) — The third cargo of an Iranian tanker flotilla carrying fuel for gasoline-thirsty Venezuela was approaching the nation’s exclusive economic zone on Tuesday as the previous two were...
Second Tanker Forest Reaches Venezuelan Dock
(Energy Analytics Institute, Piero Stewart, 26.May.2020) — The Iranian tanker Forest docked at the Cardon refinery located in the Paraguaná Refining Complex (CRP) located in Falcón state in western Venezuela,...
Iranian Tanker Fortune Docks In Puerto Cabello
(Energy Analytics Institute, Piero Stewart, 25.May.2020) — The Fortune Iranian fuel tanker reached Pier 4 of PDVSA’s El Palito Refinery located in Puerto Cabello in Carabobo state, announced Venezuela’s Economy...
Iranian Tanker Fortune Reaches Venezuela Waters
(Energy Analytics Institute, Piero Stewart, 25.May.2020) — The first of five Iranian tankers carrying gasoline and fuel additives, Fortune, has made it to Venezuela’s Exclusive Economy Zone. The five tanker...
First Iranian Tanker Reaches El Palito Refinery
(Energy Analytics Institute, Piero Stewart, 25.May.2020) — The first of five Iranian tankers carrying gasoline and additives for making fuel from Iran to Venezuela has reached the Caribbean country’s shores....
Maduro Thanks Iran For Tanker Shipments
(Energy Analytics Institute, Piero Stewart, 24.May.2020) — Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro announced gratitude to the Iran Republic for the shipments of gasoline and fuel additives that began to arrive to...
PdV’s Board Of Exiles Loses Two Technocrats
(Argus, 21.May.2020) — Two members of the parallel board of Venezuela's national oil company PdV have resigned, a development that exposes brewing frustration in the exiled technical ranks of US-backed...
US Seeks Ways To Halt Iran’s Oil Sales To Venezuela
(Wall Street Journal, 20.May.2020) — The Trump administration is weighing new sanctions and other legal steps to disrupt Iranian oil exports to Venezuela, U.S. officials said, in response to what...
PdV Restarts Coker For Export Via Cuba
(Argus, 20.May.2020) — State-owned PdV has partially restarted a 70,000 b/d delayed coker which had been off line for over a year at its 305,000 b/d Cardon refinery, three PdV...
Iran’s Oil Supply To Venezuela Eases Glut
(Argus, 19.May.2020) — Iran's gasoline shipments to Venezuela are helping to ease a supply glut at home, where demand has collapsed because of strict measures to check the Covid-19 pandemic....
US Court Declines To Hear Appeal In Crystallex Case
(Reuters, 18.May.2020) — The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear Venezuela's appeal of a lower court ruling allowing Canadian gold mining company Crystallex to seize shares in U.S....
Five Iran Tankers Sailing For Venezuela
(AP, 18.May.2020) — Five Iranian tankers likely carrying at least $45.5 million worth of gasoline and similar products are now sailing to Venezuela, part of a wider deal between the...
Venezuela Spurned By US Court In Citgo Clash
(Bloomberg, 18.May.2020) — The U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal by Venezuela in its fight to retain control of oil refiner Citgo Holding Inc., putting the country a step closer...
PdV Keeps Nynas Board Seat After Restructuring
(Argus, 13.May.2020) — Venezuela's state-owned PdV has retained one seat on the new corporate board of European specialty refiner Nynas after a restructuring that freed the venture from US sanctions....
Are Venezuelan Oil Exports Poised For A Comeback?
(Oilprice.com, 13.May.2020) — As the international community seeks answers with regards to the failed armed incursion into Venezuela that took place May 4, allegedly with the immediate participation of former...
FBI Probes Firms Over Venezuela Oil Trading
(Reuters, 13.May.2020) — The FBI is probing several Mexican and European companies allegedly involved in trading Venezuelan oil as it gathers information for a U.S. Treasury Department inquiry into possible...
Fuel Cargo Loaded At Iran Sets Sail To Venezuela
(Reuters, 13.May.2020) — At least one tanker carrying fuel loaded at an Iranian port set sail to crisis-stricken Venezuela, according to vessel tracking data from Refinitiv Eikon on Wednesday, which...
Nynas Exits US Sanctions
(Nynas, 12.May.2020) — The US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) announced today that Nynas is no longer being blocked pursuant to the Venezuela Sanctions Regulations. As a...
Nynas: Removal Of Venezuela-related License
(OFAC, 12.May.2020) — The Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is revoking and archiving on its website Venezuela-related General License (GL) 13E “Authorizing Certain Activities Involving...
PDVSA Allocates Oil Cargoes To Partner At Petrozamora
(Reuters, 12.May.2020) — A joint venture partner of state oil company PDVSA, GPB Global Resources BV, has received at least two cargoes of Venezuelan crude in recent months as part...
Venezuelan Oil Plan Runs Aground
(Argus, 8.May.2020) — A sweeping proposal to draw investment into an Opec nation would normally turn some heads. That is what Venezuela’s US-backed political opposition had been expecting when it...
PdV Rolls Out New JV Presidents
(Argus, 4.May.2020) — Venezuela's state-owned PdV rolled out the appointment of up to 26 new presidents of joint ventures that are mostly inactive. The appointments, some of whom may have...
Venezuela Oil Output Sliding, Fields Shut Due To Fire
(Reuters, 4.May.2020) — Venezuela’s oilfields produced 687,000 barrels of crude last Saturday, up from 653,000 barrels on Friday but below the 718,000 barrels per day (bpd) the country said it...
PDV Holding And Aruba Govt To End Refinery Project
(PDV Holding, 1.May.2020) — PDV Holding, Inc., and the Government of Aruba/Refineria di Aruba (RDA) today executed an amicable termination agreement in relation to the contract for the San Nicolás...
US Seeks To Investigate Mexico Oil-For-Food Pact
(Reuters, 29.Apr.2020) — The U.S. State Department, the Treasury Department and the U.S. Embassy in Mexico are investigating at least two Mexican firms involved in an oil-for-food pact signed in...
Is PDVSA Abandoning Its Socialist Agenda?
(Oilprice.com, 29.Apr.2020) — Venezuela seems to be changing tactics when it comes to managing its oil resources. PDVSA is considering a major industry reform that would increase private company activities...
Fire Reduces Venezuelan Heavy Crude Flow
(Reuters, 28.Apr.2020) — The latest fire to erupt at one of Venezuelan state-owned PdV's oil installations has temporarily knocked out up to 130,000 b/d of heavy crude production from three...
PDVSA Proposes Selling Oil Assets To Private Sector
(Forbes, 28.Apr.2020) — In a total about-face on the “socialism” and “communism” and the Yankee-Go-Home attitude of the ruling Socialists United of Venezuela (PSUV), the country’s beleaguered and bankrupt oil...
Venezuela Floats Lean PdV With Russia Unit
(Argus, 27.Apr.2020) — The two Maduro loyalists who have been effectively running Venezuela's national oil industry for two months were officially appointed today as acting heads of the oil ministry...
