LatAmOil: PdVSA auditing accounts of country’s main petcoke exporter

Venezuela’s national oil company (NOC) PdVSA is auditing accounts associated with Maroil Trading, the company that handles the majority of the country’s petroleum coke exports, within the framework of a wide-ranging anti-corruption probe, sources close to the matter told Reuters last week.

The sources said PdVSA had decided to take a closer look at Maroil Trading because of the debts the company has accumulated as a result of its involvement in petroleum coke deliveries. The commodity firm is owned by Venezuelan shipping magnate Wilmer Ruperti and is registered in Geneva.

According to one of Reuters’ sources, the audit amounts to an “account reconciliation” in which PdVSA will compare the balance sheets of Maroil Trading’s accounts with supporting documents, including bank statements. PdVSA is also expected to conduct an analysis of the commodity firm’s business operations, the prices it negotiated with the NOC, the handling of its inventories and whether any sales proceeds were deposited into Maroil Trading’s bank accounts.