Venezuela’s state oil company has begun reopening some of the wells it and its joint venture partners had shut amid a strict U.S. embargo, as crude exports resume with two shipments departed on Monday, three sources close to operations said.
The OPEC country’s oil exports had remained almost at a standstill since December, with only U.S. Chevron exporting crude from its joint ventures under a U.S. authorization, leaving millions of barrels stuck in onshore tanks and vessels.
The country’s overall crude output fell to some 880,000 barrels per day (bpd) last week, from 1.16 million bpd in late November, with its main oil region, the Orinoco Belt, seeing a drastic reduction to some 410,000 bpd compared with 675,000 bpd in late November, independent figures seen by Reuters showed.
But late on Monday two supertankers departed Venezuelan waters carrying about 1.8 million barrels each of crude in what may be the first shipments of a 50-million-barrel supply deal between Caracas and Washington, freeing exports.
The vessels were on Tuesday heading north from Venezuela’s coast to the Caribbean, LSEG ship tracking data showed, where many oil companies including traders, producers and refiners lease storage tanks.
(Reporting by Marianna Parraga and Reuters staff; Editing by Nathan Crooks, Julia Symmes-Cobb and Louise Heavens)