Oil Belt News

At least 18 oil tankers are expected to load oil for export from Venezuela in the coming weeks, according to tracking data and internal documents from state-run PDVSA, in a sign the sanctioned OPEC nation's crude exports may rebound this month.Venezuela's oil exports fell to their lowest levels since the 1940s in October, as some of Petroleos de Venezuela's last remaining clients halted trade with the company ahead of a deadline imposed by the United States.Washington sanctioned PDVSA and its partners last year to pressure Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to step down.But Maduro remains in power, and the potential rebound in oil shipments comes as PDVSA is adapting to a tightening of U.S.

President of the Republic, Nicolás Maduro, held a meeting with CEO of Rosneft, Igor Sechin, to bolster the joint work between Venezuela and Russia and sign new agreements on gas exploration and exploitation. People’s Minister of Petroleum and President of Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A., Manuel Quevedo, along with PDVSA Executive Vice President and Vice President of Trade and Supply, Ysmel Serrano; People’s Minister of Finance, Simón Zerpa; Sectoral Vice President of Economy, Wilmer Castro Soteldo, and a high level delegation of Rosneft also participated in the meeting. Fraternal relations with the Russian Federation were a highlight of the meeting, as Rosneft is a strategic partner that has enabled the development of Venezuela’s energy sector. Bilateral relations are being expanded.

Venezuela is sending its first shipment of crude mixed with Algerian light oil to China, according to state oil company PDVSA and traders. Venezuela recently started importing Saharan Blend from Algerian state-run Sonatrach to dilute its extra heavy crude from the Orinoco oil belt. PDVSA had previously imported costlier naphtha to use as a diluent. The Carabobo supertanker carrying 1.8 million barrels of Merey heavy crude will arrive in China in 46 days, PDVSA said in a statement. It did not elaborate on the terms of the deal. "This Merey crude was made with the imported Algerian crude," a trader said on Friday. The Merey blend using Algerian oil fetches Venezuela $20 dollars more per barrel than crude mixed with imported naphtha, according to Foreign Minister Rafael Ramirez.

Venezuela is considering importing crude oil for the first time ever and could use a light oil from its partner in OPEC, Algeria, to dilute their own heavy crude, according to a company document seen by Reuters accessed on Wednesday. Despite having the largest oil reserves in the world, in recent years Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) has been buying increasing amounts of heavy naphtha for blending with the extraction of heavy crude in the Orinoco Oil Belt, the largest producing region . These blends are made to convert the extra-an exportable product, amid the decline in local production of medium and light crude oils previously used as diluents and delays in construction of new breeders that can change the quality of the crude.

An oil belt floating off the coast of southeast China's Fujian province has been mostly cleaned up from the Singapore-registered ship, Barelie which struck a nearby reef recently, local maritime authorities said. About five cubic meters of heavy oil and four tonnes of wastewater have been salvaged from the spill so far, with no new spills detected, according to the Fujian Maritime Rescue Center. Rescuers have unloaded 216 shipping containers from the ship, finding no dangerous goods inside, the center said, adding that container unloading and pollution control efforts are still under way. The Singapore-registered Bareli is aground near Jiangyin Port while on route from the city of Ningbo to the provincial capital of Fuzhou. All 21 of the ship's crew members have been rescued.

An estimated 513 billion barrels of technically recoverable heavy oil are in Venezuela’s Orinoco Oil Belt. This area contains one of the world's largest recoverable oil accumulations, and this assessment is the first to identify how much is technically recoverable (producible using currently available technology and industry practices). Worldwide consumption of petroleum was 85.4 million barrels per day in 2008. The three largest consuming countries were United States with 19.5 million barrels per day, China with 7.9 million barrels per day, and Japan with 4.8 million barrels per day. “Knowing the potential for extractable resources from this tremendous oil accumulation…

Texas Republican lawmaker Joe Barton, chairman of the House Commerce Energy Subcommittee, said he wants a 90-day suspension of rules that do not allow foreign tankers to move crude between domestic ports. The rules, contained in the Jones Act, need to be altered in order to better supply Northeast heating oil markets this winter, he said. Barton's legislation would let President Clinton choose two domestic ports in the United States for foreign-flagged tankers to transport crude oil and products. The Jones Act mandates that any oil shipping between U.S. ports be carried-off by only U.S.-flagged tankers. But concerns about getting much-needed supplies to the nation's heating oil belt in the Northeast preclude the requirements…

Four European oil firms are reportedly negotiating with Cuba to carry out deep-water exploration of the island's Gulf of Mexico waters, and at least two are likely to sign contracts early next year, Cuban oil officials were reported as saying. In a separate development, Brazil's state oil firm Petrobras had also started drilling an exploration well in north-central Cuban coastal waters whose results will be announced in January or February. The exploration efforts formed part of a strategic program by Cuba's communist government to boost domestic oil and gas production and so reduce costly oil imports, whose high prices this year have badly strained Havana's stretched finances. Dr.