Page 16 - LatAmOil Week 40

LatAmOil VENEZUEL A LatAmOil

Iranian delivers more fuel to Venezuela

THREE tankers filled with Iranian petroleum with or prevent fuel shipments will be met with
products have arrived in Venezuela during the “a swift and decisive response.”
last week. The vessels were members of a con- The US government has imposed sanctions
voy bringing desperately needed supplies to the on both Iran and Venezuela.
South American country. In late 2019, the US government also began
The first two Iranian tankers, known as the trying to persuade Venezuela’s foreign fuel sup-
Forest and the Fortune, entered Venezuelan pliers to halt gasoline shipments in line with the
waters last week, according to tanker-tracking sanction regime. It did so in the hope that its
data cited by Bloomberg. Ivan Freites, the leader efforts would help oust socialist President Nico-
of the United Front of Petroleum Workers of las Maduro from power.
Venezuela, said at the time that the Forest was Earlier this year, Washington also sanctioned
making its way to port facilities operated by the two of PdVSA’s main trading partners – Rosneft
El Palito refinery. Trading and TNK Trading International, both
The third tanker, known as the Faxon, subsidiaries of the Russian oil company Rosneft
reached Venezuela on October 4. It docked at – in order to step up the pressure on Caracas.
Puerto La Cruz. Rosneft has stopped direct trading with PDVSA
Venezuela’s national oil company (NOC) and has said it will transfer all its Venezuelan
PdVSA has been importing petroleum prod- assets to an unnamed entity that is controlled by
ucts from Iran in a bid to alleviate severe gas- the Russian government. ™
oline shortages that have idled millions of cars,
disrupted public transportation and impeded
shipments of food into Venezuelan cities.
PdVSA’s cash-strapped refineries are in no
position to cover domestic fuel demand, as they
have been running at a fraction of their capacity
in recent months.
This is the second time Iran has supplied
Venezuela with fuel since the end of May. At
that time, a flotilla of five vessels delivered 1.5mn
barrels of Iranian gasoline and fuel additives, as
well as parts for local refineries.
Tehran did attempt to send more gasoline to
Caracas in August, but the US intercepted and
seized those vessels. Iran’s Foreign Ministry has
said that any attempt by Washington to interfere Fuel shortages are widespread in Venezuela (Photo: FEE.org)

GUYANA
ExxonMobil makes FID on Payara project

US-BASED ExxonMobil and its partners have Phase 2. Liza Phase 1, the only operating sec-
made a final investment decision (FID) in favour tion of the block, began commercial operations
of proceeding with the development of Payara, a in December 2019, and Liza Phase 2 is slated to
section of the Stabroek block offshore Guyana. start production in early 2022.
In a statement, the super-major said the The statement noted that ExxonMobil hoped
investors had taken this step after securing the to develop other sections of Stabroek. “Exxon-
Guyanese government’s approval for its plans, Mobil is evaluating additional development
which carry a price tag of $9bn. Those plans call opportunities in the Stabroek block, includ-
for Payara, which holds about 600mn barrels ing [the] Redtail, Yellowtail, Mako and Uaru
of oil equivalent (boe) in recoverable reserves, resources, and plans to have five drillships oper-
to achieve first oil in 2024 (and not in 2023, as ating offshore Guyana by the end of this year,”
originally intended). Production levels at the it said.
field will eventually peak at 220,000 barrels per
day (bpd). Contract awards
Payara will be the third section of Stabroek The Payara project also made progress on other
to come online, following Liza Phase 1 and Liza fronts last week.

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