Chevron resumes importing Venezuelan oil to the US after a 4-year blockade
US oil company Chevron has a tanker en route to sanctioned Venezuela, where it will pick up a cargo of crude destined for the US, the first after about four years of harsh oil sanctions, Reuters reported.
Chevron is also sending another tanker to Venezuela, this time for a delivery: The tanker is carrying much-needed diluents that will be mixed with Venezuela's heavy crude. According to anonymous sources, it will arrive in Venezuela in early January.
Chevron has a six-month license, granted by the US government in late November, to expand its role in its Venezuelan joint ventures. This license allows the US oil company to bring some of the sanctioned Venezuelan crude into the US to sell to US refiners.
Sanctions against Venezuela were introduced in 2019 by the Trump administration, and the Biden administration's decision to ease them came after talks resumed earlier this year between Nicolas Maduro's government and the Venezuelan opposition. Those talks led to the signing of a US-brokered deal between the government and the opposition to resolve the country's political turmoil.
Profits from the sale of Chevron's Venezuelan crude will be used to pay off Chevron's debt and will not support the profits of PDVSA, the state-owned company.
Chevron is the only US oil company currently present in Venezuela, but we recall that among the major oil companies, ENI is also present in the South American country.
The future of Chevron in Venezuela and the possible expansions or extensions of the licenses will greatly depend on the attitude of the United States towards the Nicolas Maduro regime and on the fulfillment of the promises made by the latter last month with the opposition. Of course Caracas would allow the USA to contain fuel prices and therefore contain inflation, at the moment the problem most felt by the US electorate.
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The article Chevron resumes importing Venezuelan oil to the USA after 4 years of blockade comes from Scenari Economici .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/petrolio-venezuela-chevron/ on Sun, 01 Jan 2023 11:40:45 +0000.