Venezuela oil exports volume sank to a historic low of 359,000 barrel/day in October 2020. The decline was contributed mostly as long term clients of PDVSA’s, state-run oil company, paused trade to meet the U.S sanctions to suspend their businesses with the corporation. The U.S set a deadline for PDVSA’s long term customer to stop oil swaps by October-November. The corporation’s long term customers including Spain's Repsol REP.MC, India's Reliance Industries RELI.NS, and Italy’s Eni ENI.MI had to stop this year exceptions of sanctions on Venezuela regarding oil swaps that had been authorised earlier.
Data from internal documents of the state company as well as vessel tracking data from Refinitiv Eikon shows none of the above companies loaded Venezuelan crude cargoes in October and declining PDVSA’s portfolio of customers. Data also shows a cargo of Venezuela’s crude on the tanker Explorer had taken by Thailand's Tipco Asphalt TASCO.BK and at least two more shipments are scheduled to depart in November before ceasing trade with PDVSA.
In October, a total of 28 vessels set out from the sanctioned country, and the 359,000 barrel/day volume export is the lowest monthly average since 1943 according to Venezuelan oil ministry record. In June, PDVSA and its joint ventures recorded 381,000 barrel/day on average, increased slightly in July to 388,000 barrel/day, then rose to 440,000 barrel/day in August and spiked to 703,000 barrel/day on average in September. The internal PDVSA documents and Eikon data indicating September spike was mainly caused by the last-minute procurement by their traditional customers. In the previous month, Venezuela’s crude oil leading destination was Asia, with approximately a third of the total exports, followed by Cuba with around 104,000 barrel/day.
Currently, Venezuela’s exports are increasingly challenging to track. The difficulties are caused by a growing portion of oil shipments originating in ship-to-ship operations, not at PDVSA’s ports. PDVSA inaugurated a new spot for transferring crude between tankers near La Borracha island off the nation’s eastern coast in October.
