Deeper ties with Iran has helped Venezuela to bypass US sanctions. At the same time, phantom buyers keep the lifeline for President Nicolas Maduro’s administration. An Iranian official said that Tehran had developed smokescreens that help Caracas to maintain its oil exports under US sanctions. These smokescreens include ship-to-ship transfers and the misidentification of vessels transporting Venezuelan oil.
For instance, a tanker named The Otoman loaded 1.82 million barrels of heavy crude at Venezuela’s Jose oil terminal in August. The Otoman is not registered in any major global shipping databases. In addition, the tanker used a unique identifier which was assigned to another tanker called the Rubyni. According to tanker tracking data, Rubyni was scrapped on the coast of Bangladesh in 2018. PDVSA listed at least two ships in its export schedules for October. These two ships, the Lion 1 and the Vinland, are both not operational.
PDVSA had mostly traded with Rosneft’s units. However, it stopped in March when Washington sanctioned those Rosneft units. Rosneft said that it had ceased all business ties with PDVSA following the sanctions. This virtually cut PDVSA off its former customers, leaving only new customers which prevented Venezuela’s oil exports from collapsing. A group of unknown companies emerged this year as PDVSA’s new buyers. These companies hired a fleet of more than 30 tankers, including The Otoman, to lift Venezuelan oil.
These firms are mostly based in Russia but with incomplete addresses. Until the US sanctions, PDVSA selected its customers vigorously. PDVSA preferred companies with credit-worthiness and experience of at least two years in the oil industry. It also required buyers to operate refineries, leaving no space for middlemen to participate. However, PDVSA abandoned these practices and are now adding phantom clients.
