Effect of U.S. sanctions on Venezuelan oil trade

[Kailash Kumar]

Refiner Marathon to replace Venezuela crude with Middle East, Latin America imports

FEBRUARY 7, 2019

Feb 7 (Reuters) - U.S. refiner Marathon Petroleum Corp would replace crude oil from Venezuela with imports from the Middle East and Latin America, a top company executive said.

“We see those replacement barrels being...Arabian Gulf barrels, as well as predominantly, Latin American barrels,” Rick Hessling, a senior vice president at Marathon’s MLP unit, said on a post-earnings conference call.

The U.S. imposed sweeping sanctions on Venezuela’s state-run oil company PDVSA last week to curb OPEC members’ crude exports to the United States and pressure Venezuela’s socialist President Nicolas Maduro to step down

https://uk.reuters.com/article/mara...-latin-america-imports-idUKL3N2022ZA?rpc=401&

 

[Kailash Kumar]

Total pulls staff out of Venezuela after US sanctions

07/02/2019

Paris (AFP)

French oil and gas firm Total has evacuated its staff from Venezuela where its accounts have been blocked due to US sanctions, the company's chief executive said Thursday.

"The accounts are blocked thanks to US decisions," CEO Patrick Pouyanne said during a presentation of Total's annual financial results.

"The other practical problem is that, given the sanctions, we should no longer manage Venezuela from the United States... but from Europe," he added.

Total had previously managed its Venezuela operations from the United States.

"We decided to evacuate all of our personnel from Venezuela given what has happened... since last Monday," said Pouyanne.

The US imposed sanctions on Venezuela's state oil company PDVSA on Monday last week in an effort to ramp up pressure on the country's President Nicolas Maduro.

Pouyanne said Total would "of course" respect the US sanctions and its operations in Venezuela would put into "hibernation mode".

Total's website said it had about 50 staff in Venezuela, where the company is involved in exploration plus production of crude oil and natural gas.

Pouyanne played down the importance of Venezuela for Total, saying it was worth just 50,000 of the three million barrels it produces every day.

Total had earlier announced its net profit climbed 33 percent to $11.4 billion in 2018 thanks to a rise in oil prices and production.

https://www.france24.com/en/20190207-total-pulls-staff-out-venezuela-after-us-sanctions

 

[Menthol]

Sanction used to be thru UN.

In my opinion, this is a form of abusing of power.


I think if we want to talk about Justice and fairness. UN should investigate first whatever the crisis happened in Venezuela is because of self mistake or there are foreign influence that lead to it.