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LatAmOil VENEZUEL A LatAmOil

PdVSA’s Merey-16 inventories

reportedly dwindled in January

VENEZUELA’S national oil company (NOC) since last October, it noted.
PdVSA has reportedly seen its inventories of The Reuters story went to press shortly before
Merey-16, the country’s principal export grade Platts S&P Global reported that PdVSA and its
of crude, shrink significantly in recent weeks. foreign partners had extracted more crude from
According to company documents viewed by Venezuelan fields than expected in January. The
Reuters late last month, PdVSA’s Merey-16 NOC had said previously that it anticipated
stocks at Puerto de Jose, the largest oil terminal yields averaging 461,000 bpd in the first month
in the country, dwindled from 9mn barrels to of the year, but daily output reports viewed by
4.85mn barrels between December 21 and Jan- Platts put the actual number at 520,000 bpd.
uary 25. PdVSA’s joint ventures with foreign compa-
This represents a decline of more than 46%, nies appear to be responsible for much of the
and it appears to be the result of an increase in increase, as they succeeded in boosting pro-
exports, the news agency said. It did not provide duction at fields in the Orinoco Belt to 290,000
specific details on export shipments, though it bpd in January, up from 220,000 bpd in the last
did note that the NOC has recently stepped up month of 2020, Platts said. It also stated that the
efforts to send its production to market despite NOC had attributed the rise to the acceleration
the US sanctions regime, which is intended to of work on a well repair programme. ™
discourage trade in Venezuelan oil.
The reduction in stock levels has helped
PdVSA step up production and processing
operations by opening up additional capacity in
storage tanks at Puerto de Jose, Reuters added.
Various company documents show that the vol-
ume of extra-heavy crude extracted from Ori-
noco Belt fields rose from 219,000 barrels per
day as of the beginning of January to 286,000
bpd on January 21, it stated. Likewise, the vol-
ume of export-grade blends turned out by facil-
ities that mix these extra-heavy streams with
lighter liquids rose to 276,000 bpd on January
21 before sinking to 247,000 bpd on January 25,
it said. These were the highest figures reported Merey-16 stocks are down at the Puerto de Jose terminal (Photo: El Ají)

BRAZIL
Petrobras calls new tender for lease

of Bahia LNG regasification terminal

PETROBRAS, the national oil company (NOC) According to previous reports, Petrobras’
of Brazil, has called a new tender for the right pre-qualification list includes nine companies.
to lease an LNG import terminal in Bahia State. Three of them are domestic firms – Compass
In a statement dated February 1, Petrobras Gas and Energy, a new Brazilian gas transport
explained that it was launching a new bidding and distribution company set up by the Cosan
contest for the Bahia LNG facility because it had industrial group, and two Brazilian gas distrib-
not received any valid proposals in its last ten- utors, Bahiagas and Naturgy. Four are vertically
der. It also said it would only accept offers from integrated international oil companies (IOCs)
the companies that had already been pre-quali- – BP (UK), Repsol (Spain), Royal Dutch Shell
fied to bid for this asset as of late 2019. (UK/Netherlands) and Total (France).

P10 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 05 04•February•2021