Venezuela Is Losing Its Best Oil Buyer. Tankers give up and going elsewhere.
Oilprice.com
Matt Smith
Oilprice.com December 1, 2017
Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro said this week that PdVSA is willing to retaliate against financial sanctions from the U.S. by suspending oil exports to the country, sending crude to Asia instead.
This seems highly unlikely, given that the U.S. is one of its largest cash-paying customers. China is PdVSA's largest customer in Asia, but it doesn't receive payment for these shipments - it is using crude to pay off its vast debts instead.
...fast forward....
Venezuela and Curacao import light crude and naphtha to use as a diluent, mixing it with its heavy crude for exportation. After importing other grades in previous years, PdVSA's Curacao terminal started regularly importing U.S. crude at the start of last year.
It imported (mostly) WTI in every month but one last year, with deliveries averaging 29,000 bpd across the period. But after a solid start to 2017, imports started to sputter in Q2. After an absence of deliveries in both April and May, there was a 500,000 bbl delivery of DSW from Enterprise's Beaumont terminal. This was the last delivery of U.S. crude in the last five months.
Last week we told clients about the Aframax Tulip. It left Enterprise's Beaumont terminal with 500,000 bbls of WTI in mid-May, and has been anchored off Curacao ever since. After waiting there for six months, the vessel left her anchorage last week. It would appear that the owner of the cargo has given up hope that PdDVSA will ever pay for the oil.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/venezuela-losing-best-oil-buyer-230000563.html
PdVSA needs US naptha and Light Brent/West Texas Intermediate to thin out its thick, tarry and often contaminated oil. Because while Venezuela is sitting on the worlds biggest proven reserves, its thick and nasty and its very deep. PdVSA doesn't have the technology needed to recover ultra-heavy crude oil, such as in most of the Orinoco Belt. Not only that, but even with the technology, it is VERY expensive to pump out. Without the Light Brent/naptha, even China isn't getting paid in oil.
Chavismo has run out of money, and has no income because it can't pump out its own oil.
= new reply since forum marked as read
