Sanctions squeeze Venezuela's heavy crude output
Latin America's economically troubled oil giant faces the difficult task of significantly raising Asian crude grades
Venezuela's upgraders have been forced to stop upgrading extra-heavy crude and instead focus on blending light and heavy grades, as US sanctions limit exports of the South American country's most valuable oil. US sanctions related to the country's political crisis have debilitated Venezuela's access to synthetic crude export markets, prompting Pdvsa, the state-owned oil company, to substitute it for greater volumes of the 16 ºAPI Merey blend preferred in Asia, which is now Venezuela’s key export market. Pdvsa has begun the process by converting its Petropiar joint venture upgrader (Chevron 30pc) into a blender capable of processing extra-heavy Orinoco crude with light crude—outputting Merey
Also in this section
23 October 2024
Majors in the region are pushing boundaries and could see significant upside, but longer-term risks remain
22 October 2024
Angola is unlikely to meet the official timeline for an IPO of state-owned oil giant Sonangol in 2026
21 October 2024
Companies operating offshore assets in the region are unlikely to halt development plans for now, even as hostilities intensify
21 October 2024
For the tanker market, recent escalation in the Mideast conflict has largely been offset by soft fundamentals