From March 7th to 10th, a national power failure paralysed the exporter of electricity with the largest oil reserves on Earth.

 

(NO) Power to the people

Nationwide Blackout in Venezuela: FAQ

Venezuela replace US executives on Citgo board

Citgo is facing unprecedented challenges to its finances and management after the US government imposed sanctions.

SOC Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) is taking steps to remove at least two American executives from the board of directors of its United States’s refining subsidiary.

Venezuela in crisis:

• Venezuela’s vulnerable elderly on a lonely quest for survival
• US, Russia present rival UN draft resolutions on Venezuela
• Food, humanitarian aid pawns in Venezuela political standoff
• Venezuela’s state-run oil company Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) is taking steps to remove at least two American executives from the board of directors of its United States’s refining subsidiary, Citgo Petroleum Corp, according to people close to the matter.

Citgo is facing unprecedented challenges to its finances and management after the US government last week imposed tough sanctions on PDVSA designed to prevent oil revenue from going to leftist President Nicolas Maduro.

Can the international community solve Venezuela’s crisis?
The US and dozens of other nations have refused to recognise Maduro, viewing his re-election last year to another six-year term as fraudulent.

Venezuelan’s self-proclaimed president Juan Guaido is setting up bank accounts with US help that would take income accrued by Citgo, Venezuela’s top foreign asset, to finance an interim government.

Maduro has denounced Guaido as a US puppet who is seeking to foment a coup.

The board of Houston-based Citgo includes at least two US citizens, Art Klein and Rick Esser, as well as Venezuelans Asdrubal Chavez, Frank Gygax, Nepmar Escalona, Simon Suarez and Alejandro Escarra, according to one of the people familiar with the matter.

Citgo also has an executive board that includes the refiner’s general managers, its corporate treasurer and the controller, and other vice presidents.

It was unclear if PDVSA’s board has already approved the changes at Citgo’s board and who would replace the American executives.

The Battle for Venezuela

Venezuela oil czar courts India after $20 billion hit from U.S.
By DEBJIT CHAKRABORTY AND DHWANI PANDYA on 2/11/2019
Venezuela’s oil minister made a surprise appearance at an energy event in India, as the embattled OPEC producer seeks closer ties with major crude customers in the face of crippling U.S. sanctions.

Manuel Quevedo said  his nation wants to sell more crude to India, and that U.S. measures have resulted in a $20 billion loss to the Latin American country’s economy. He’s also the head of state producer Petroleos de Venezuela — a post the career military man was appointed to in late 2017 as President Nicolas Maduro began to purge large swathes of the firm’s managerial ranks.

His arrival in India coincides with swirling speculation over the future of the Venezuelan oil industry, following a ban on its crude by the Trump administration. PDVSA is seeking to retain buyers in other big consuming-countries such as China and India after American refiners halted purchases. The U.S. wants to get Maduro to cede power to an interim government led by Juan Guaido — a lawmaker who claims he’s the country’s rightful leader.

India is set to emerge as Venezuela’s preferred customer due to the nation’s willingness to pay for crude in cash, as opposed to sales to China that are supplied via oil-for-loans agreements, according to Sushant Gupta, director of Asia-Pacific refining at Wood Mackenzie Ltd. The OPEC nation’s output could decline further if it fails to secure enough funds for upstream investments, after production halved from 2016 levels to about 1.3 MMbpd in January.

Quevedo, who met Indian Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, said his country’s production is now at 1.57 MMbpd. Venezuela, which currently holds the OPEC presidency, has a “healthy relationship” with the Asian country, he said at the Petrotech conference near New Delhi, where he originally wasn’t on the list of attendees.

Reliance Industries, an Indian refiner that operates the world’s biggest processing complex, is taking a parcel of Venezuelan synthetic oil Hamaca that was originally scheduled for delivery to a LyondellBasell Industries NV plant in the U.S., according to person with knowledge of situation and shipping reports compiled by Bloomberg. The last time India got the grade was in April 2018.

STOP PRESS:  Venezuela Halts Oil Exports To India
By Tsvetana Paraskova – Mar 19, 2019, 2:00 PM CDT

Venezuela has suspended crude oil exports to India, one of its key markets until very recently, Reuters reported on Tuesday, citing a statement from the energy ministry of Azerbaijan, where Venezuela’s Oil Minister Manuel Quevedo is on a visit for this past weekend’s OPEC+ panel meeting and for talks with his Azeri counterpart.

“Quevedo said in order to prevent a sharp reduction, various measures are being implemented and diversification of the export market is underway,” the statement further reads, as carried by Reuters.

India has been one of the largest buyers of Venezuelan oil and the second-largest customer paying in cash, following the United States. Russia and China, which Maduro sees as priority markets, are owed money by Venezuela that repays loans to Moscow and Beijing mostly with crude oil shipments.

  LINK TO….Source OILPRICE

Oil Tankers

Venezuela will need to make a lot more such sales to sustain its oil industry. The U.S. sanctions have sliced its oil exports to a 10-month low. Last year, the nation loaded one vessel a day for U.S. refiners. After the American restrictions were imposed on Jan. 28, only one tanker has loaded over a 10-day period. That has turned oil ships into floating storage facilities.

There are more than 8 MMbbl of Venezuelan crude idling all over the Gulf of Mexico in an area that stretches from U.S. coast to the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, according to cargo-tracking and market intelligence company Kpler.

Guaido, the head of Venezuela’s National Assembly, is trying to wrest ownership of PDVSA’s Houston-based unit, Citgo Petroleum, away from the current regime. The move forms a key part of his strategy to topple Maduro and install an interim government that would call new elections. Guaido has said he plans to name a new board of directors for the state producer and its U.S. subsidiary.

The U.S. wants to “steal Citgo from Venezuela,” Quevedo said on Monday. “Citgo is a Venezuelan-owned petroleum company. The United States is simply trying to eliminate competitors.”

Chevron CEO vows to work with U.S. to remain in Venezuela

(Bloomberg) — Chevron Corp., CEO Mike Wirth pledged to work closely with the U.S. to remain in Venezuela despite a spiraling crisis that led rival oil major Total SA to retreat.

“Our strong intent is to stay on the ground in Venezuela and be part of building a better future for the people of Venezuela,” Wirth said in an interview in Houston Monday. “We’ve got a very close coordination under way with multiple agencies within the U.S. government.”

Chevron is the largest American oil company left in the OPEC founder, holding the world’s biggest oil reserves.   President Nicolas Maduro faces growing pressure from the U.S. and other nations to step aside. Sanctions by the Trump administration mean U.S. companies can’t deal with any arm of the Venezuelan government or entities controlled by Maduro, whom it considers illegitimate.

t Chevron, and some U.S. oilfield-service companies including Schlumberger Ltd.,were granted a license until July 27 on their operations . Wirth declined to comment on whether he sees that as a hard deadline and point in time when Chevron would need to withdraw. “We work closely with the U.S. government to understand how their policy objectives are being manifest through the sanctions they have issued and to ensure we remain in full compliance with U.S. law.” .

Chevron loaded three U.S.-bound ships with Venezuelan oil.

Upgrader partnership

Chevron, the world’s third-largest publicly traded oil company by market value, is a joint-venture partner with SOC PDVSA, in the country’s second-largest upgrader, a key facility that converts tar-like, extra-heavy crude into lighter oils for refineries. If Chevron withdrew, it could potentially hand the venture to Maduro, which would go against the spirit of the U.S.’s sanctions.

“It’s a fluid environment,” Wirth said, adding that the safety of employees and operations is the priority. “We do contingency planning. That’s based on our assessment of risks anywhere in the world.”

CEO Patrick Pouyanne said Total SA plans to pull employees from Venezuela as a result of the U.S. sanctions. The French company was not on the list of exempt companies published by the Treasury Department on Nov. 1. Total may stay in its Venezuela joint venture, with conditions, as it seeks to “understand what exactly” the U.S. sanctions are.

The U.S. and other countries backed National Assembly leader Juan Guaido as interim president as they seek to loosen Maduro’s grip on power. Wirth said Chevron remains “neutral” on who’s in charge.

“It’s a demanding, difficult situation right now, it’s ultimately up to the people of Venezuela to select their political leadership,” he said.