Venezuela
News
March 19, 2021
Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro is keen to enlist American and European oil companies to help bring an end to U.S. sanctions – and with investment opportunities in the world’s largest oil and gas reserves as leverage, his plan appears to be working.
News
March 02, 2021
In mid-January the U.S. blacklisted Maltese trading company Elemento Limited and Geneva-based Swissoil Trading SA for facilitating Maduro’s attempts to circumvent U.S. sanctions.
News
January 28, 2021
High on the agenda for the U.S. and Indian oil companies: reinstating transactions known as oil swaps that would allow companies to receive Venezuelan crude in exchange for supplying diesel fuel.
News
January 25, 2021
The cat-and-mouse games that avoid detection and sanctions include ship-to-ship transfers, shell companies and silenced satellite signals. But there’s another aspect to the dodge. It involves “doping” the oil with chemical additives and changing its name in the paperwork so it can be sold as a wholly different crude without a trace of its Venezuelan roots.
News
January 14, 2021
The island nation of Palau says a tanker that recently loaded Venezuelan crude was using a false signal to disguise its identity, potentially putting the Pacific country in the crosshairs of U.S. sanctions.
News
January 05, 2021
Since taking over for Hugo Chavez in 2013, Nicolas Maduro has resisted efforts to force him out, presiding over a precipitous deterioration of the oil-rich country.
News
January 01, 2021
Venezuela has managed to defy sweeping U.S. sanctions against state-owned producer PDVSA and keep shipping some crude abroad, mainly to China. But Washington has intensified the crackdown on companies that break the restrictions, and PDVSA has struggled to sell its barrels in Asia.
News
December 18, 2020
The Biden administration signaled an intent to push for free and fair elections in Venezuela, offering sanctions relief in return. Maduro’s foreign backers, including Russia, China and Iran, are expected to play a role, as will Cuba, which is keen to improve relations with the U.S.
News
December 01, 2020
While PDVSA’s internal documents show vessels like Vinland, Pacific Cape and Vision loading at the port of Jose, these vessels are not operational. Data show that they were sent to the scrapyard months prior to the scheduled loading dates in Venezuela.
News
October 23, 2020
Venezuelan crude inventories have surged 84% over the last three weeks as the threat of U.S. sanctions ward away buyers of the nation’s most important commodity.
News
September 28, 2020
The first vessel in an Iranian convoy of ships bringing desperately needed fuel arrived in Venezuela, demonstrating both nations’ determination to undermine U.S. efforts to isolate the governments in Tehran and Caracas.
News
September 23, 2020
Venezuela, owner of the world’s largest oil reserves, has been struggling to find ships willing to risk sanctions after the Trump administration announced sanctions on six vessels and its shipowners for transporting its crude.
News
September 14, 2020
The ship, identified as Honey, turned off its satellite signal and started unloading about 2 million barrels of South Pars condensate at Venezuela’s state-controlled port of Jose on Saturday, according to a report and a person with knowledge of the situation.
News
August 31, 2020
A former Venezuelan oil official fled the country and is talking to U.S. authorities about aiding their investigation of a high-level corruption scheme that helped plunge the oil-rich nation into an economic meltdown.
News
August 19, 2020
The measures could target crude swaps with companies in Asia and Europe, according to people familiar with the matter. U.S. officials have debated the move for months, yet they initially prioritized actions against Iran, which began exporting gasoline to fuel-starved Venezuela.
News
August 18, 2020
Four tankers whose cargoes were seized by the U.S. over the past month were heading to Venezuela with gasoline loaded in Iran, according to Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh.
News
August 14, 2020
The U.S. seized four tankers carrying Iranian oil bound for Venezuela in violation of sanctions, the Justice Department announced.
News
August 12, 2020
The prospects for petrostates have dramatically shifted from just a decade ago. Oil prices were near $100 a barrel then and consumers were worried about supplies running out. Now, OPEC is increasingly having to reckon with the prospect of peak demand, when consumption starts to decline as wind and solar power become more popular.
News
July 03, 2020
Crude production in Venezuela tumbled for a sixth straight month in June, underscoring the dismal state of the nation’s oil industry as U.S. sanctions batter exports and the coronavirus pummels demand.
News
June 17, 2020
Officially, China hasn’t imported any Venezuelan crude since September after Washington sanctioned state entities including PDVSA. Information from data intelligence firm Kpler, however, signals the Asian nation is still buying, with as much as 3.3 MMbbl waiting off the Chinese coast as of June 15 and another 5 MMbbl en route to the port of Qingdao.
News
June 12, 2020
As fields across the nation shut amid a relentless U.S. campaign to cut Venezuela off from global oil markets, the number of rigs drilling for crude fell to just one in May, according to data from Baker Hughes. Another lone rig was drilling for gas.
