Jose Terminal News

Venezuela's oil exports slightly increased in February to some 670,000 barrels per day (bpd), but ongoing shipping delays worsened a bottleneck of tankers waiting to load, according to documents and vessel monitoring data.State-run oil firm PDVSA's customers have rushed to send tankers to Venezuela in recent months to pick up crude and fuel before the United States potentially reimposes oil sanctions.Restrictions could resume on April 18 when an existing license expires, the U.S.

Chevron Corp has stepped up sales of Venezuelan crude oil to rival U.S. refiners, adding PBF Energy Inc and Marathon Petroleum Corp to its list of customers for the crude, vessel tracking and loading schedules showed.U.S. Gulf Coast refiners, which historically processed Venezuelan oil, have shown a renewed appetite for the heavy sour crude grade after Chevron late last year received authorization from the U.S. Treasury Department to expand its operations in Venezuela and resume oil shipments to the U.S. after a four-year pause.Chevron, the last big U.S.

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…

Tankers carrying about 1.22 million barrels of Iranian crude and 2 million barrels of condensate are scheduled to discharge at Venezuela's Jose terminal in the coming days, according to a document from state oil company PDVSA.Venezuela relies in Iran for a large portion of the diluents that PDVSA uses to convert its heavy oil to exportable grades. Iranian crude also is being refined in the South American country to produce motor fuels.One of the tankers that arrived this month in Venezuelan waters is the Iran-flagged very large crude carrier (VLCC) Huge, operated by National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC), according to the document. Non-profit organization United Against Nuclear Iran and monitoring service TankerTrackers.com confirmed its identity.For the second cargo…

A tanker carrying about 1 million barrels on Iranian heavy crude arrived in recent days in Venezuelan waters for delivery to the country's largest refinery, according to a shipping report seen by Reuters on Monday and vessel tracking data.Iran and Venezuela have recently expanded a swap agreement signed last year, adding the supply of Iranian heavy crude to Venezuela's El Palito refinery and Paraguana Refining Center (CRP), part of an effort to revamp the dilapidated facilities.

A 2.1 million barrel cargo of Iranian condensate arrived in Venezuela's waters this week, vessel tracking data and a company document showed, ferrying supplies to state-run oil firm PDVSA to dilute its extra heavy oil for export.U.S.-sanctioned Venezuela and Iran last year agreed to a contract for exchanging Iranian condensate, a very light form of oil, for Venezuelan heavy crude. The trade has proven key to sustaining PDVSA's production and expanding its exports.The Iranian-flagged very large crude carrier (VLCC) Dan, operated by state-owned National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC), entered Venezuelan Jose port's anchorage on Tuesday…

Venezuela's oil exports plummeted in January to the lowest level since September amid loading bottlenecks caused by returned and rescheduled crude cargoes, according to internal documents from state-run PDVSA and tanker tracking data.Even as the company and its joint ventures are receiving a stable supply of diluents from Iran that has allow it to increase production, they have struggled to export those volumes because of crude quality issues and the poor condition of storage tanks and port berths.An average of 416…

Venezuela has resumed direct shipments of oil to China after U.S. sanctions sent the trade underground for more than a year, according to Refinitiv Eikon vessel-tracking data and internal documents from state company Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA).Chinese state companies China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) and PetroChina - long among PDVSA's top customers - stopped loading crude and fuel at Venezuelan ports in August 2019 after Washington extended its sanctions on PDVSA to include any companies trading with the Venezuelan state firm.The imposition of the sanctions was part of a push by the Trump administration to oust Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro…

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.

Venezuela's state-run oil firm PDVSA is informing customers about a new hub for doing ship-to-ship transfers for exports in a location away from shore, a shift that could mean higher costs and less supervision, according to three sources.More than two-thirds of Venezuela's oil exports leave from the Jose terminal on the country's eastern coast, a large and heavily supervised facility with two monobuoys for exports and connected through pipelines to several crude upgraders.But with U.S.

Last year, China replaced the United States as the No. 1 importer of oil from Venezuela, yet another front in the heated rivalry between Washington and Beijing.The United States had imposed sanctions on Venezuela’s state-owned oil company as part of a bid to topple that country’s socialist president, Nicolas Maduro. U.S. refineries stopped buying Venezuelan crude. Caracas’ ally China, long a major customer, suddenly found itself the top purchaser. Through the first six months of 2019, it imported an average of 350,000 barrels per day of crude from Venezuela.But in August, Washington tightened its sanctions on Venezuela, warning that any foreign entity that continued to do business with the South American country’s government could find itself subject to sanctions.

At least two cargoes of Venezuelan crude have been delayed due to health inspections aboard tankers to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, according to an internal document from state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela seen by Reuters.The delays add to a growing glut of tankers loaded with Venezuelan crude that preceded the coronavirus crisis as U.S. sanctions spooked potential customers. With domestic onshore oil inventories approaching capacity, PDVSA has been increasingly forced to send barrels onto floating storage.The largest shipment affected by the health measures is the Delta Angelica tanker, which was originally scheduled to depart Venezuela's Jose terminal between March 19-21 with 1.9 million barrels of heavy Merey crude bound for India's Reliance Industries…

A sailor aboard an oil tanker anchored off Venezuela's coast died on Saturday, three people with knowledge of the incident said, marking the second death in less than a week involving personnel aboard ships serving the crisis-stricken OPEC nation.Juan Carlos Navarrete, a 58-year-old Cuban national serving as a helmsman aboard the Petion Panamax tanker, died after falling overboard while the tanker was anchored in Amuay Bay in western Venezuela, one of the sources, union leader Ivan Freites, said on Sunday.Neither Venezuela's state oil company PDVSA, nor its oil or information ministries, immediately responded to requests for comment.Both the Petion and its operator…

U.S. refiner Citgo said the Gerd Knutsen oil tanker, which had been carrying crude claimed by both the company and Venezuelan parent PDVSA, departed Venezuela's Jose Terminal on Thursday and entered international waters on Friday morning.The tanker over the past week discharged its 1 million barrel cargo, worth some $57 million, in Venezuela after being stranded for over a year off the South American country's coast amid fallout over U.S. sanctions on PDVSA, designed to force out socialist President Nicolas Maduro.The tanker discharged after Citgo, now controlled by the Venezuelan opposition, sought an order from a U.S. court seeking to block the tanker from returning its cargo to PDVSA.

The National Shipping Company of Saudi Arabia (Bahri) on Sunday clarified that its very large crude carrier (VLCC) tanker Abqaiq was not breaching the US sanctions on Venezuela.Earlier, the US Senator Marco Rubio accused Bahri of trying to sell diluents to the Venezuelan regime."Abqaiq is in ballast condition with no cargo onboard and on her way from the Red Sea to pick up a cargo from the Port of Jose Terminal in Venezuela for one of its regular customers in India," said a statement from the national shipping carrier of Saudi Arabia.The Saudi oil tanker has set sail free of cargo from the Red Sea. Its destination is Venezuela’s Port of Jose to load a shipment agreed on Jan. 9, 2019, prior to the imposition of sanctions on Caracas, Bahri said in a statement.The U.S.

Operations at Venezuela's main oil-exporting port Jose were hit by a crude oil spill on Tuesday, union sources and shipping agents told Reuters. A break in a pipeline that runs from the oil terminal to a single buoy mooring (SBM) facility near Venezuela's eastern coast would have produced the spill, according to four sources familiar with the incident. None of the sources could confirm the spill's magnitude but operators said there were no vessels docking at the SBM at the time of the incident. The 36-inch pipe can transport up to 32,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil to the SBM facility, which is used by tankers to load oil for export. State-owned oil company PDVSA did not immediately respond to a request for information about the incident.

Venezuelan crude oil sales to the United States rose nearly 4 percent in May to 762,000 barrels per day (bpd) after declining since January amid falling output and delays at the country's main oil port, according to Thomson Reuters data on Tuesday. The United States last month received 47 cargoes of Venezuelan crude, a 3.7 percent increase versus the previous month, but still a 2 percent decline versus May 2015, according to trade flows data made with preliminary figures. A larger number of shipments of diluted crude oil (DCO) and Merey blend received by PDVSA's customers, including its refining unit Citgo Petroleum, Valero Energy and Phillips 66, contributed to the growth.

Venezuela's state-run oil company PDVSA has hired a supertanker to load a second 2 million-barrel cargo of Algerian crude, according to preliminary tanker fixture data. Venezuela will start importing light crude this month with a shipment of Algerian Saharan Blend scheduled to arrive at its Jose terminal on Oct. 26. Two additional cargoes of Russia's Urals crude were bought from Petrochina to be received at Isla refinery, operated by PDVSA on the Caribbean island of Curacao. This week, PDVSA booked the VLCC Boston to load around October 25 at the port of Arzew, according to a shipping report. It is not clear yet if this second Algerian crude cargo will be received in Venezuela or at one of PDVSA's terminals in the Caribbean, such as Bonaire, Curacao or Saint Eustatius.