PDVSA Continues to fall apart

PDVSA steps up fuel imports.  Venezuela's state-run oil company PDVSA is again seeking imported fuel to supply the domestic market and the country's troubled while offering residual fuel for sale, traders told Reuters on Tuesday. Reuters reports that PDVSA put out a tender to purchase 900,000 barrels of high sulfur diesel, heavy for refinery processing and propane. It is also offering to sell 500,000 barrels of fuel oil. Venezuela’s imports have jumped over the past year as its refining capacity has withered. PDVSA’s refineries operated at just 31 percent capacity in the first quarter. 

Most companies and traders supplying PDVSA with fuels, even amid U.S. sanctions that have created obstacles for making payments in dollars to PDVSA or granting the company any type of credit, are receiving Venezuelan crude or fuel oil in exchange, according to traders and PDVSA's internal documents.

PDVSA's refineries worked at 31 percent of their combined capacity of 1.62 million barrels per day ( ) in the first quarter. The company's Amuay, Cardon, Isla, Puerto la Cruz and El Palito facilities processed 510,000 of crude in that period, down sharply from a 631,000 average in all of 2017.

Since U.S. oil firm ConocoPhillips last month started legal actions in the Caribbean to enforce a $2 billion arbitration award, Venezuelan crude shipments have been interrupted to PDVSA's 335,000- Isla refinery in Curacao.

Source: Reuters