Page 7 - NorthAmOil Week 10 2021
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NorthAmOil COMMENTARY NorthAmOil
The Trump administration had taken careful down on trying to move oil to market. Rather,
note of these attempts and responded to them there are questions about just how much the
by trying to block every avenue towards transac- national oil company (NOC) PdVSA has been
tions involving Venezuelan crude oil. For exam- selling recently.
ple, it extended the sanctions regime to cover According to a Bloomberg report published
traders that were acting as middlemen for the earlier this week, ship-tracking data and ship-
sale of Venezuelan oil to buyers in China and ping reports indicate that Venezuelan oil
elsewhere, and it threatened to do the same to exports dropped to 418,857 barrels per day
shipping companies and financial service pro- (bpd) in February, down by 13% on the previ-
viders that facilitated the export of Venezuelan ous month. However, other sources have sug-
production. In August 2020, it went so far as to gested something quite different. For example,
seize a group of Venezuela-bound tankers car- Refinitiv Eikon data cited by Reuters indicate
rying gasoline from Iran, another country fac- that the South American state exported a total
ing US sanctions. of 732,107 bpd of crude oil and petroleum prod- The official’s
It also remained intent on following this ucts in February, up by 35% month on month.
course even after Biden’s successful election bid. Reuters said that the increase had been driven statements seem
In mid-January, just a few days before Trump partly by a 33% jump in the volume of residual to indicate that
left office, it penalised a Maltese trading com- fuel oil shipments to Asia, but it also put Vene-
pany, Elemento Ltd, on charges of reselling zuela’s total crude exports at 568,200 bpd and there will be
Venezuelan oil, and also sanctioned Swissoil indicated that volumes had gone up from Janu-
Trading, a Swiss company, for allegedly “dop- ary to February. broad continuity
ing” Venezuelan crude cargoes – that is, adding The discrepancy between the Reuters and
chemicals to disguise their origin. Bloomberg figures is not easy to explain and of policy with
may arise from the fact that the two news agen- respect to US
Circumventing sanctions? cies are drawing on different sources. It is worth
The Biden administration has not revealed noting, though, that Reuters pointed to an sanctions on
whether it is willing to take a similar approach. uptick in the volume of Venezuelan oil handled
That is, it has not said whether it will follow by little-known trading firms that some mari- Venezuela.
Trump’s lead in extending the threat of sanctions time observers have described as “phantom
to companies not directly involved in the pro- companies” – and that it mentioned an increase
duction, processing or purchase of Venezuelan in fuel oil shipments. These reports may indi-
crude. cate that Maduro’s regime is actually stepping
The new president may have to make deci- up efforts to circumvent US sanctions. If so, US
sions on this front soon, since there are no signs authorities should consider how and whether
that Maduro and his supporters are backing they intend to react.
Week 10 12•March•2021 www. NEWSBASE .com P7
