Petroleos de Venezuela Delves Into E-Commerce Arena

Venezuelan state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) will begin selling bunker fuel via two Internet sites later this month, its first sales project across the Web, a company official said.

PDVSA will offer fuel from its terminal in Freeport, Grand Bahamas Island to shipping companies via two industry Internet sites: www.oceanconnect.com and www.bunkerstem.com. "I believe that before the end of the month, in one or two weeks, we will be selling fuel (over the Internet)," a company official close to the project said.

PDVSA hopes to expand the sales project later this year to sell bunker fuels from its other terminals on the Venezuelan coast. The company, which will also consider selling cargoes of other fuels via the Internet, predicts that within a few years it could transact around a fifth of all its total bunker sales across the Internet. PDVSA reports that it currently sells approximately $150 million a year of bunker fuels.