Marine Link
Thursday, March 28, 2024
SUBSCRIBE

Oil Ministry News

01 Mar 2024

New US Sanctions More Likely to Curb Indian Imports of Russian Coal

© Letopisec / Adobe Stock

New U.S. sanctions on Moscow are more likely than previous ones to cut Indian imports of thermal coal from Russia because they specifically cite top exporters SUEK and Mechel, three major traders of Russian coal said.Russia, historically a minor exporter of the fuel to India, began boosting shipments to the south Asian country after Western sanctions against Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine.The latest U.S. sanctions also include Russia's payment system, financial institutions and energy production."With the new sanctions…

25 Jul 2023

Iranian Oil Remains Stuck Off US Coast

A cargo of sanctioned Iranian crude oil that was confiscated by the U.S. has sat off the Texas coast for eight weeks, unable to unload because commercial agents fear any vessel that takes it will be shunned by customers, people familiar with the matter said.Suez Rajan, a Marshall Islands-flagged tanker, has been anchored off Galveston, about 50 miles (80 km) outside of Houston, since May 30, with ship agents refusing to accept it. The Suezmax requires a lightering agent to transfer the crude to smaller ships, as its size and weight restrict it from directly entering the port.Shipping companies are worried that lightering the Iranian crude onto their vessels would lead other oil buyers to shun their ships on future voyages…

21 Jul 2023

Iran Denies Oil on Tanker Seized by Indonesia Belongs to Tehran

Iran said the oil cargo of an Iranian-flagged supertanker seized by Indonesia last week does not belong to Tehran, Iranian state media reported on Friday. A statement from Iran's oil ministry did not identify the owner of the cargo of MT Arman 114, an Iranian-flagged supertanker suspected of involvement in the illegal transshipment of crude oil, which Indonesia's coast guard said on July 11 it had seized. "Published news linking the cargo of this ship to... Iran has no validity, and this is done with the aim of creating a negative atmosphere against our country," Iran's oil ministry statement said, without elaborating. On Thursday the…

04 May 2023

Venezuela's Oil Tankers at Risk of Sinking, Fires, Spills, Report finds

©JosIsaac/AdobeStock

More than half of the 22 oil tankers in Venezuela's fleet are so run down that they should be immediately repaired or taken out of service, according to an internal report from state-run oil company PDVSA that was shared exclusively with Reuters. The report by PDVSA's maritime branch, entitled "Critical deficiencies and risks of PDV Marina's tanker fleet," said years of deferred maintenance had left the entire fleet with "low levels of reliability," at risk of spills, sinking, fires, collisions or flooding.

04 Apr 2023

Venezuela's March Oil Exports Rise on More Supertankers, Chevron Cargoes

©Carabay/AdobeStock

Venezuela's oil exports rose in March to the highest monthly average since August, boosted by a resumption of loadings after an export freeze and by rising cargoes assigned to Chevron Corp, according to documents and shipping data.State oil company PDVSA has reinstated two export contracts after a January freeze by new boss Pedro Tellechea: a medium-term contract with Hangzhou Energy, and another with Portugal-based Adinius Sociedade de Servicios, the documents showed. Those two customers accounted for a large portion of exports…

29 Mar 2023

Syria: All Ports Shut Due to Bad Weather

Tartous map - Credit: Tatiana/AdobeStock

Syria's port authority has shut down all the country's sea ports including Tartous due to poor weather and high winds, state media reported on Wednesday.The port of Tartous had initially been exempt from the closure but the country's ports authority later said it was shutting down as conditions worsened. "There are winds and high waves in bursts and we cannot risk opening the ports at this time," Brigadier General Samer Kobrosli, the director general of the authority, told Reuters.

13 Mar 2023

Venezuela to Ship Fuel to Cuba on US-blacklisted Supertanker

© Igor Groshev / Adobe Stock

Venezuela's state-run oil company PDVSA on Monday was loading a supertanker with crude and fuel for Cuba, maritime documents showed, an unusually large volume to help its political ally overcome an energy crisis with repeated blackouts.Several big electrical outages this year have left many in Cuba concerned about power supplies this summer, when residents crank up air conditioning to stay cool in the Caribbean heat.Cuban officials have blamed the intermittent power on difficulties processing heavy sour Cuban crude and fuel shortages on the island…

17 Jan 2023

Venezuela's PDVSA Freezes Most Oil Exports for Contract Reviews

© poonsit / Adobe Stock

The new head of Venezuela's state oil company PDVSA has suspended most oil export contracts while his team reviews them in a move to avoid payment defaults, according to an internal document seen by Reuters and people familiar with the matter.Since U.S. trading sanctions were first imposed on PDVSA in 2019, the company has increasingly resorted to little known middlemen to allocate its oil exports, leading to big price discounts and problems with payments affecting its cashflow.The freeze order is leading to port delays…

16 Jan 2023

Iranian Oil Exports End 2022 at a High, Despite No Nuclear Deal

© leodeep / Adobe Stock

Iranian oil exports hit new highs in the last two months of 2022 and are making a strong start to 2023 despite U.S. sanctions, according to companies that track the flows, on higher shipments to China and Venezuela.Tehran's oil exports have been limited since former U.S. President Donald Trump in 2018 exited a 2015 nuclear accord and reimposed sanctions aimed at curbing oil exports and the associated revenue to Iran's government.Exports have risen during the term of his successor President Joe Biden, who had sought to revive the nuclear deal, and hit the highest since 2019 on some estimates.

30 Nov 2022

Venezuelan Oil Exports Flow Using False Documents, Ships Linked to Iran

When the supertanker Young Yong sailed to the Chinese port of Qingdao in September last year, it had quality certificates for its cargo stating it was transporting Malaysian crude oil, according to the documents reviewed by Reuters.But satellite images and photos show the Chinese-owned ship had loaded the oil four months earlier in Venezuela, an OPEC nation in South America under U.S. oil sanctions.The Young Yong is one of three vessels identified by Reuters that were chartered by little-known companies to export Venezuelan oil and used false documents to conceal its origin, according to shipping documents and 11 sources with knowledge of the trade.Two of those tankers, including the Young Yong, were designated this month by U.S.

24 Nov 2021

Five Vessels with Fuel Cargoes Reach Sudan

Credit: mapsandphotos/AdobeStock

Five vessels loaded with fuel arrived in Sudan's main port, the energy and oil ministry said on Wednesday, adding that the country's fuel reserves are sufficient.Three vessels were loaded with diesel, one with cooking gas and one with petrol, the ministry said."The supply situation is very reassuring," it said, adding that work is underway to implement Sudan's import plan for December.(Reporting by Khalid Abdelaziz Writing by Mahmoud Mourad Editing by David Goodman)

18 Oct 2021

Report: As Power Crisis Worsens, India Presses Qatar for Delayed LNG Cargoes

File Photo: Qatargas

India, grappling with its worst power crisis in five years, has asked Qatar to expedite delivery of 58 delayed liquefied natural gas (LNG) cargoes, two sources familiar with the matter said.Asia's third largest economy is suffering its worst power shortage since March 2016 due to a crippling coal shortage amid high global energy prices.Infrastructure maintenance at supplier Qatargas prevented it from delivering 50 LNG cargoes to India this year, the sources said, prompting India's…

23 Jul 2021

Venezuela's PDVSA Imports Condensate to Boost Oil Blending

Venezuela's state-run PDVSA began discharging 620,000 barrels of imported condensate crude oil at the nation's largest oil port this week in an effort to boost blending operations, according to two company documents, sources and vessel tracking data.Venezuela had not imported condensate since September when it received a 2.1 million-barrel cargo from Iran, a political and commercial ally of President Nicolas Maduro that since 2020 has also supplied the South American nation with fuel.PDVSA this year doubled down on efforts to boost blending and upgrading of crudes from the OPEC member country's largest producing region, the Orinoco belt…

21 Jun 2021

As Iran Eyes Return to Oil Trading, Storage at Sea Rises

© namning/AdobeStock

Iran could quickly export millions of barrels of oil it is holding in storage if it reaches a deal with the United States on its nuclear program and has been moving oil into place to prepare for an eventual restart, four traders and industrial sources said.The U.S. and Iran began in mid-June their sixth round of indirect talks on reviving a 2015 nuclear deal that former U.S. President Donald Trump pulled out of in 2018. Trump reimposed sanctions on Iran’s energy sector, leading…

31 May 2021

Indonesia Releases Iranian Tanker It Seized In January

Iranian-flagged MT Horse (formerly known as Honar) - Credit: Mick Prendergast

An Iranian-flagged tanker seized by Indonesia in January over the suspected illegal transfer of oil has been released, an Indonesian official and Iranian state media said on Saturday.Wisnu Pramandita, a spokesman for the Indonesian coastguard, said the Iranian-flagged tanker, the MT Horse, was released on Friday after a court decision earlier in the week.The court ruled the vessel could leave Indonesia, while the captain would be subject to a two-year probation without any fine…

19 May 2021

Tanker Bottleneck Emerges in Venezuela as Crude Stocks Run Low

© Vladimir / Adobe Stock

More than a dozen large tankers were waiting on Wednesday at Venezuela's main oil port and nearby anchorage zones for state-run PDVSA to assign them slots to load crude, as an outage and low inventories caused delays, according to documents and sources.Venezuela's crude output declined in April to 445,000 barrels per day (bpd), according to secondary sources consulted by OPEC, down 81,000 bpd from March levels. The drop was mainly due to a lack of diluents to produce exportable grades from the country's largest oil region…

12 May 2021

Mariner Missing from Cuban Tanker en Route to Venezuela

A crew member aboard a Cuba-flagged oil tanker on its way from a Mexican shipyard to Venezuela was reported missing this week, according to a shipping report seen by Reuters, marking the second incident aboard the same vessel in about a year.Sailor Rafael Desiderio Martinez Alonso was not found last Sunday by the doctor onboard oil tanker Petion, which set sail on May 6 from Mexico's port of Veracruz bound for the Cardon terminal in Venezuela's western coast.The report by the tanker's shipping agency to Venezuelan port authorities about the incident said Martinez Alonso, who was one the tanker's fitters, is believed to have fallen into open waters because his shoes were found near the ship's gas plant.

10 May 2021

Fire Breaks Out on Tanker Near Syrian Coast

© hanohiki / Adobe Stock

A small fire occurred in one of the engines of a tanker off the coast of Syria's Mediterranean port of Banias, state media said.The fire was extinguished by the crew quickly with no casualties, it said."The technical fault took place in one of the engines of the oil tanker near the coast...it caused a small fire and a plume of smoke," state media said.Local radio station FM Sham earlier said an explosion had hit a tanker during maintenance works after it had caught fire a few days earlier while offloading its oil cargo.Last month, Syria's oil ministry said firefighters put out a fire on an oil

29 Dec 2020

UAE Emerges as Hub for Companies Helping Venezuela Avoid US Oil Sanctions

In June, the United States imposed sanctions on half a dozen oil tankers managed by established shipping firms. It was a major escalation of American attempts to choke off Venezuela’s oil trade.Within weeks, a little-known company based in the United Arab Emirates took over management of several tankers that had been shipping Venezuelan oil. The vessels got new names. And then they resumed transporting Venezuelan crude.The company, Muhit Maritime FZE, is one of three UAE-based entities identified by Reuters that have shipped Venezuelan crude and fuel during the second half of this year. Their role emerges from an examination of internal shipping documents from Venezuela’s state oil company as well as third-party shipping and vessel tracking data.

23 Feb 2021

Perfect Trips: Venezuela Ships Jet Fuel to Iran in Exchange for Gasoline

Venezuela is shipping jet fuel to Iran in return for vital gasoline imports for the South American nation as part of a swap deal agreed by the two state-run oil firms, three people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.Iran has ramped up assistance to Venezuela since last year as the United States tightened sanctions on both countries, hitting oil exports by state-run firms Petroleos de Venezuela and National Iranian oil Company (NIOC).Iran has sent flotillas of state-operated tankers carrying gasoline and feedstock for motor fuel to Venezuela, as well as equipment and spare parts to help the once-prosperous OPEC nation restart its…

02 Mar 2021

Venezuelan Oil Exports Rise on Larger Sales to Asia

© Francis / Adobe Stock

Venezuela’s oil exports rose in February to over 700,000 barrels per day (bpd), their highest level in 10 months, pushed by more sales of fuel oil cargoes to new clients in Asian markets, according to Refinitiv Eikon’s tanker tracking data and documents.A growing number of clients with no track record in oil trading has been helping Venezuela’s state-run PDVSA to allocate crude and fuel in Asia, especially since the U.S. Treasury Department halted oil swaps by PDVSA’s long-term customers in the last quarter of 2020 as part of tightening sanctions.These buyers…

26 Apr 2021

Oil Tanker Hit By Suspected Drone Attack Off Syria

Syria's oil ministry said firefighters on Saturday put out a fire on an oil tanker off the Baniyas refinery after a suspected attack by a drone coming from the direction of Lebanese waters.The identity of the vessel was unclear, with Iran's al-Alam TV saying it was one of three Iranian oil tankers that had recently arrived at the Syrian oil terminal, while the semi-official news agency Tasnim denied it was Iranian.TankerTrackers said in a tweet that "the tanker seen burning today off the coast of Baniyas is not an Iranian vessel", but Beirut-registered.Syria's coastal town of Baniyas houses a refinery, which along with another in Homs…

30 Apr 2021

Mexican Yard Services US-sanctioned Tankers that Carry Venezuelan Oil

Three Cuban-flagged tankers that are under U.S. sanctions for transporting Venezuelan oil to the Communist-run island have been serviced in the port of Veracruz on Mexico's Gulf coast, according to vessel tracking data and industry sources.The maintenance work on the vessels—one of which was serviced as recently as this month—is a potential breach of sanctions on Venezuela, two lawyers who specialize in U.S. sanctions said.However, the United States has in the past not brought enforcement actions against shipyards for doing work on blacklisted vessels from those countries, according to U.S. Treasury Department data.Under U.S. law, companies and individuals are prohibited from materially assisting sanctioned entities.