Bloomberg News

NEW YORK
EnergiesNet.com 11 16 2023

Vitol Group hired a supertanker to load oil from Venezuela, a signal that a softening of US sanctions is freeing up the Latin American country’s exports. 

The oil trading giant booked the vessel Gustavia S for $11 million to load later this month or early next, according to lists of ship charters compiled by Bloomberg. Details of the shipment, which is to go to China, were also circulating widely among shipbrokers. 

A resurgence in Venezuelan flows could help to prevent spikes in oil prices at a time when other countries in the OPEC+ alliance — most notably Saudi Arabia and Russia — are keeping supply off the global market. That could be a boon too Joe Biden’s administration with about a year to go until the next presidential election.

Last month, the US softened sanctions on Venezuelan oil production after four years, a step that should reshape global crude flows. Before the US imposed sanctions on Petróleos de Venezuela – Venezuela’s state energy company – in 2019, Vitol was both a buyer of Venezuelan crude oil and a supplier of oil products including naphtha to the country.

A spokesperson for Vitol declined to comment.

Gustavia S has a transportation capacity of about 2 million barrels of oil. It is sailing toward the Gulf of Mexico, ship-tracking data show.

bloomberg.com 11 15 2023