Venezuela oil shipments double in February as output rebounds

Venezuela sharply increased crude exports in February, with average daily shipments reaching about 788,000 barrels, nearly double the levels recorded a month earlier, according to vessel-tracking data and figures from Kpler Ltd., Bloomberg reported. 

January exports had stood at roughly 383,000 barrels a day, when the Trump administration first took control of the country’s oil sales.

The rise in exports reflects a recovery in production after output sank to almost two-year lows in January following the capture of Nicolás Maduro by US special forces, an event that unsettled the industry. 

The rebound has unfolded against a volatile global backdrop marked by US attacks on Iran, which have disrupted energy markets and pushed oil prices higher, even as the Strait of Hormuz remains open.

Higher production has been supported by renewed access to heavy naphtha, a key diluent needed to move and process Venezuela’s extra-heavy crude. The country received five cargoes of diluents in February, compared with two the previous month, helping to stabilise operations and sustain export flows.

US refineries have taken in their largest volumes of Venezuelan oil in more than seven years, with shipments handled by Chevron Corp. and commodity traders Vitol Group and Trafigura Group. 

The traders were authorised by Washington to market up to 50mn barrels of Venezuelan crude. Since early January, they have shipped at least 35mn barrels of crude, fuel oil and asphalt — about 70% of the allocated volumes — while China has remained absent from the market since Maduro’s capture.