Page 6 - LatAmOil Week 38 2019

LatAmOil VENEZUELA/CUBA LatAmOil
US government penalises four companies for moving Venezuelan oil, fuels to Cuba
THE US Treasury Department said on Septem- ber 24 that its Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) had imposed sanctions on four com- panies involved in transporting crude oil and petroleum products from Venezuela to Cuba.
In a statement, the US government agency named the four firms in question as Bluelane Overseas, Caroil Transport Marine, Tovase Development and Trocana World. Caroil Trans- port Marine is based in Cyprus, it said, and the other three companies are based in Panama.
The Treasury Department said it had also “identified four vessels that transport oil and other petroleum products from Venezuela to Cuba as blocked property owned or controlled by the four designated entities.” Bluelane Over- seas is the owner of the Giralt oil tanker, it said, while Caroil Transport Marine operates three chemical/petroleum product tankers named Carlota C, Petion (owned by Trocana World) and Sandino (owned by Tovase Development).
All four of these ships have been used to deliver cargoes oil or fuel to Cuba, the statement said. Some of the shipments were carried out under agreements between Venezuela’s national
oil company (NOC) PdVSA and Cuba’s national oil import and export concern Cubametales. Both PdVSA and Cubametales were already subject to US sanctions prior to September 24.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Washington had made this move in a bid to deny support to the government of Venezuelan Presi- dent Nicolas Maduro.
“The United States continues to take strong action against the former illegitimate Maduro regime and the malign foreign actors who sup- port it,” he was quoted as saying in the state- ment. “Maduro’s Cuban benefactors provide a lifeline to the regime and enable its repressive security and intelligence apparatus. Venezuela’s oil belongs to the Venezuelan people and should not be used as a bargaining tool to prop up dicta- tors and prolong the usurpation of Venezuelan democracy.”
PdVSA is currently the main supplier of oil and petroleum products to Cuba, and it has held that position for many years. But it has not been able to deliver fuel in the same amounts as it did before the US government imposed tighter sanctions on Caracas earlier this year. ™
COLOMBIA
Head of Colombian industry group hopes government will allow fracking in 2020
THE head of a Colombian oil and gas industry group has urged the government to let investors start work on pilot drilling programmes involv- ing hydraulic fracturing (fracking), in 2020.
Francisco Lloreda, the president of the Colombia Petroleum Association (known as ACP), told reporters on September 24 that if the government gave the green light, the national oil company (NOC) Ecopetrol and other investors would be able to start preparations for fracking as soon as possible. “We hope to start at least the civil works next year and hopefully we can be perforating next year,” he stated.
Lloreda noted that Ecopetrol, ConocoPhil- lips (US) and ExxonMobil (US), along with the Drummond coal company (US), all hoped to pursue fracking campaigns in Colombia. The fields involved in these projects may eventually yield 450,000 barrels per day of oil, he said. (This
figure is equivalent to more than 52% of the country’s current oil production, which stands at 860,000 bpd.)
According to the ACP president, these pro- jects could inject billions of dollars into the Colombian economy.
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ACP President Francisco Lloreda (Photo: ACP)
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Week 38 26•September•2019