Venezuela’s exports of crude oil and fuel declined almost 9% last month following two large power blackouts and equipment outages at state energy company PDVSA’s crude upgraders, according to ship monitoring data and documents.
The OPEC-member’s oil output and exports have recovered somewhat from very low figures between 2020 and 2022, but a long-standing lack of investment, U.S. sanctions and frequent operational problems continue to limit what PDVSA can do to raise output capacity.
A large power blackout in most of the country’s territory in late August forced suspension of refineries, oil terminals and the four crude upgraders that process the Orinoco Belt’s extra heavy oil through early September. A second interruption days later and equipment malfunctions disabled three upgraders again for several days, the documents showed.
A total of 42 vessels departed Venezuelan waters in September, carrying an average of 842,600 barrels per day (bpd) of crude and fuel and 267,000 metric tons of oil byproducts and petrochemicals, according to the data.
That was below the previous month’s strong levels, but above the same period a year ago. PDVSA and its joint ventures exported 925,000 bpd of crude and fuel in August, the highest monthly figure since early 2020.
Shipments to Asia led the September exports with 510,000 bpd, followed by the United States, which received about 212,000 bpd of crude sent by Chevron from its production joint ventures with PDVSA. Exports to Europe by Spain’s Repsol rose to 97,000 bpd, while supply to Cuba fell to some 22,000 bpd.
Exports to North America and Europe have been on the rise this year under individual authorizations granted by the U.S. Treasury Department to energy companies including Chevron, Repsol, Eni and Maurel & Prom.
The country also has sought to keep shipments to China stable, with a large portion of exports passing through Malaysia for ship-to-ship transfers, the vessel tracking data showed.
Venezuela also imported 67,000 bpd of fuel and diluents in September, below the 90,000 bpd of August, the data showed.
(Reporting by Marianna Parraga in Houston, and Mircely Guanipa in Maracay, Venezuela; Editing by Bill Berkrot)