Page 12 - LatAmOil Week 20 2020

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FBI reportedly probes foreign firms over Venezuelan oil trade allegations
THE US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is reportedly probing several Mexican and Euro- pean companies that are allegedly involved in trading oil from Venezuela. Information is being gathered in preparation for a possible inquiry into sanctions-busting, Reuters said last week, citing four people familiar with the matter.
According to the sources, the FBI is eyeing three Mexican firms – Libre Abordo, Schlager Business Group and Grupo Jomadi Logistics & Cargo. Additionally, it is looking at two Euro- pean companies, Elemento and Swissoil Trad- ing, that are also being probed by the Treasury and State Departments, the sources added.
Neither European company has a track record of either selling fuel to PdVSA or deal- ing in Venezuelan oil, Reuters noted. One of its sources pointed out that action against the companies in question might be postponed or cancelled if they have already stopped trading with Venezuela.
Two of the Mexican companies, Libre Abordo and its affiliate Schlager, have declared that the two oil-for-food contracts they signed in June 2019 with Venezuela’s Corporation for For- eign Trade were allowed under the sanctions as long as Maduro’s government received no cash payment. “Neither Libre Abordo nor shipping companies hired to move PdVSA’s hydrocar- bons are the subject of sanctions,” they said in a recent statement.
The oil-for-food contracts provided for the Mexican firms to deliver food and water trucks to Caracas in exchange for Venezuelan crude. Some of these supplies have already arrived in Venezuela.
Last month US Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo said that the US government was inves- tigating reports that a number of firms were violating the sanctions imposed on Venezuela’s state oil major PdVSA in January 2019. Wash- ington hopes that these restrictions on trade will help break socialist Venezuelan President Nico- las Maduro’s grip on power.
The sweeping sanctions, which supple- mented earlier measures targeting the Vene- zuelan government, were designed to hit the country’s oil sector. Since oil accounts for most of the country’s income, US officials hopes that economic pain will help convince Maduro to step down from his post and clear the way for an interim government led by Venezuela’s chief opposition leader, Juan Guaido.
Washington has been enforcing the sanc- tions more strictly in recent months, in an effort to topple Maduro more quickly. The Venezuelan president’s administration is already barely able to afford food, medicine and other imports, but it remains in power. ™
SometruckshavealreadyarrivedinVenezuelabyship(YucatanTimes)
Iran warns US on shipments to Venezuela
AN Iranian news agency close to the elite Revo- lutionary Guards said on Saturday there would be repercussions if the United States acted “just like pirates” against an Iranian fuel shipment to Venezuela.
A senior official in President Donald Trump’s administration told Reuters on Thursday that the US was considering measures it could take in response to Iran’s shipment of fuel to cri- sis-stricken Venezuela.
The oil sectors of Iran and Venezuela,
members of OPEC, are both subject to US sanctions.
The Trump administration official declined to specify the measures being considered, but he said that options would be presented to the president.
“If the United States, just like pirates, intends
to create insecurity on international waterways,
it would be taking a dangerous risk and that will certainly not go without repercussion,” Iran’s
Nour news agency said. 
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