Venezuela's commercial oil exports nearly halted as reviews expand
23/03/2023 17:42
By Marianna Parraga and Deisy Buitrago
HOUSTON/CARACAS, March 23 (Reuters) - Expanded oil
export contract reviews at Venezuela's state-run PDVSA have
nearly halted all commercial crude and fuel releases, as
officials seek to match past invoices with payments, according
to documents and people familiar with the matter.
An anti-corruption probe has led to the recent arrests of
about 20 PDVSA employees, judges and politicians, and prompted
the resignation of powerful oil minister Tareck El Aissami. An
oil export suspension that first began in January under El
Aissami has worsened, internal documents showed.
PDVSA, which accounts for most of the OPEC nation's export
revenue, delivered documents to prosecutors that revealed $21.2
billion in commercial accounts receivable in the last three
years, of which $3.6 billion are potentially unrecoverable.
Across Venezuela's export terminals, only four PDVSA
customers were active this week: Iran's Naftiran Intertrade
Company (NICO), U.S.-based Chevron CVX.N , Cuba's state-owned
Cubametales and Hangzhou Energy, according to PDVSA schedules.
NICO, Chevron and Cubametales are taking cargoes as
compensation for pending debt or oil swaps, which reduces
PDVSA's risk of failed payments. Hangzhou Energy's contract is
the only one so far ratified after the audit, according to one
of the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
PDVSA, Venezuela's oil ministry, Cuba's foreign affairs
ministry and a Chevron spokesperson did not immediately reply to
requests for comment. Hangzhou Energy could not be reached for
comment.
AUDIT EXTENDED
The anti-corruption investigation has focused on determining
whether customers with contracts that required prepayments had
delivered payments. More recently, officials have expanded the
scope of the audit to include price discrepancies, and the
performance of PDVSA subsidiaries and joint ventures, company
sources said.
A bottleneck of tankers waiting for PDVSA to allocate export
cargoes has worsened, according to PDVSA's schedules and vessel
monitoring service TankerTrackers.com.
TankerTrackers.com estimated on Thursday there were 23
supertankers, 16 of them near the Jose Terminal, the country's
main export terminal, waiting to load Venezuelan crude and fuel
for export. That was up from 21 at the end of January.
Contributing to the shipping delays: Privately-owned
shipping agencies working for PDVSA and its customers were
placed on hold to revise their registration documents, the
people said. Only two agencies continued to service companies.
The delays are worrying some customers whose cargoes of
crude, fuel and byproducts have not been shipped on time,
according to other people familiar with the matter.
On Tuesday, PDVSA head Pedro Tellechea, who also was
appointed as oil minister after El Aissami's resignation, named
two new top executives at the company: Hector Obregon as
executive vice president, and Luis Molina as vice president of
exploration and production.
(Reporting by Marianna Parraga in Houston, Deisy Buitrago in
caracas; Additional reporting by Sudarshan Varadhan in
Singapore; Editing by Paul Simao)
((marianna.parraga@thomsonreuters.com; +1 713 371 7559; Reuters
Messaging: @mariannaparraga))