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Tanker Warrior King is unloading Venezuelan crude in the Chinese port of Bayuquan, while two large oil tankers owned by PetroChina loaded crude into Venezuela this month, according to PDVSA’s export schedules, shipping documents and data from Refinitiv Eikon.
Venezuela resumed direct oil shipments to China after U.S. sanctions smuggled shipments to Asia for more than a year, according to Refinitiv Eikon ship tracking data and internal documents from Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) state-owned. ).
State-owned China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) and PetroChina, long a major customer of PDVSA, stopped loading crude oil and fuels into Venezuelan ports in August 2019 after Washington extended its sanctions to companies trading with the Venezuelan state.
The imposition of so-called “ secondary sanctions ” in 2019 was part of a strategy by President Donald Trump’s administration to pressure the departure of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, but failed to completely reduce oil exports from the South American nation .
On the other hand, shipments of crude oil extracted from PDVSA to Malaysia have proliferated, where the transfer of goods between oil tankers at sea has allowed most Venezuelan oil exports to continue flowing to China, after changing hands and using intermediaries.
PDVSA, PetroChina, CNPC and the Venezuelan Oil Ministry did not respond to requests for comment.
A spokesman for the US Treasury Department said Wednesday that those “involved in activities in the Venezuelan oil sector face sanctions.”
The first tanker to resume transporting Venezuelan crude directly to China was the Kyoto, identified by monitoring service TankerTrackers.com loading 1.8 million barrels of Venezuelan heavy crude into the port of Jose at the end of August.
At least one other tanker, the Warrior King, is unloading Venezuelan crude in the Chinese port of Bayuquan, while two large oil tankers owned by PetroChina loaded crude into Venezuela this month, according to PDVSA’s export schedules, shipping documents and data. Refinitiv Eikon. .
The Kyoto, hired by a firm named Wanneng Munay according to one of the Venezuelan state documents, was unloaded at the Chinese terminal in Dalian in early November after traveling part of its route to Asia on a “black journey” or with his transmitter off, Eikon’s data showed.
Wanneng Munay is part of a group of over a dozen registered companies in Russia with no prior known experience in the oil trade that have emerged as PDVSA clients in recent months.
The emergence of these companies has allowed PDVSA to continue sending crude oil to Asia in recent months despite the withdrawal of long-term customers like Reliance Industries of India and Tipco Asphalt of Thailand, after the Treasury Department revoked the permissions granted to them. these companies.
Wanneng Munay could not be reached. The company that registered its website, Moscow-based OGX Trading, told Reuters in October that the company had been unable to start trading due to the coronavirus. Monte Nero Management SA, the operator of Kyoto, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
New government
The resumption of shipments to China anticipates the handing over of power in the United States in January from Republican Trump to President-elect Joe Biden, whose advisers said the Democrat could keep the sanctions policy but change the focus of that strategy.
The shipments also come after Washington sanctioned two units of Russia’s Rosneft earlier this year and added to its blacklist a group of shipping companies that continued to do business with PDVSA following increased sanctions earlier of 2019. Rosneft says it has since ceased its activities with PDVSA, but sanctions on its units have not been lifted.
The US State Department did not comment on the resumption of direct exports to China.
On Thursday, the Togo-flagged Warrior King oil tanker, which was owned by Venezuela until September, was unloading at China’s Bayuquan oil terminal, after transporting some 600,000 barrels of heavy Merey 16 crude loaded in September, according to another of the documents. from PDVSA and data from Refinitiv Eikon.
PDVSA did not list the customer of that shipment in its data. Panama-based company Umbridges Trade SA, which owns the ship, was not reached for comment.
State oil company documents and ship tracking data also show that two PetroChina-owned super tankers with the capacity to carry around 2 million barrels of crude oil, each loaded with Venezuelan heavy crude in Jose in recent days.
One of the ships, the Xingye, sailed from Venezuela on Thursday, aiming for Singapore as a destination, according to Eikon. The other, the Thousand Sunny, has not yet sailed. Both ships were owned by a joint venture between PDVSA and PetroChina until the beginning of the year, when the Chinese took full ownership.
The buyer behind the two shipments is a company called Cirrostrati Technology Co LTD, according to PDVSA documents. Reuters was unable to contact the company or determine where it operates.
China is part, along with Russia and Cuba, of the group of countries that have publicly criticized sanctions against the OPEC member state.
The Maduro administration held a meeting in Venezuela this month with a delegation of Chinese officials and businessmen who support a new law that allows the government to sign oil deals confidentially.
Maduro said during the meeting that he would send a letter to Chinese President Xi Jingping to promote a stronger trade relationship between nations. “We have to move forward in investments, in building wealth, in new alliances. The anti-blockade law allows everything. Let’s do it in a new phase, ”he added during the meeting.
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