(Reuters) – Repairs to a dock at Venezuela’s main oil export port will take at least another month to complete following a tanker collision more than a month ago, further restraining the OPEC member nation’s crude exports, according to sources and shipping data
(Reuters) – Repairs to a dock at Venezuela’s main oil export port will take at least another month to complete following a tanker collision more than a month ago, further restraining the OPEC member nation’s crude exports, according to sources and shipping data. A minor incident in late August forced state-run oil company PDVSA to shut the Jose port’s South dock, one of three used to ship heavy and upgraded oil to customers including Russia’s Rosneft and U.S.-based Chevron Corp, and to receive diluents needed for the exports. Jose port typically handles about 70 percent of Venezuela’s total crude exports, which in September declined 14 percent compared with the previous month to 1.105 million barrels per day (bpd), according to Refinitiv Eikon data. Oil exports are the financial backbone of Venezuela’s economy, which is struggling to overcome hyperinflation, a long-standing recession and scarcity of basic goods.
