HOUSTON: Venezuela's state-run oil company PDVSA has launched tenders to buy up to 3 million barrels of US light sweet crude and 1.2 million barrels of Russia's Urals crude for January delivery, according to documents seen by Reuters on Wednesday.
PDVSA is requesting five 600,000-barrel cargoes of US West Texas Intermediate or DSW crudes. It would also accept the oil coming in two 1-million-barrel cargoes and an additional 600,000-barrel cargo
In a separate tender, the firm is seeking two 600,000-barrel cargoes of Urals medium crude for January delivery
All the crude would be processed at PDVSA's 335,000-barrel-per-day Isla refinery in Curacao, which has been working at reduced rates in the second half of the year due to lack of light oil
PDVSA proposes to pay for the purchases through offsetting, pre-payment or open account. The last mechanism has been increasingly difficult to get due to US financial sanctions imposed on Venezuela and PDVSA
The company had not requested crude through a tender on the open market since August, when it canceled an offer to buy two cargoes of DSW
PDVSA bought two 500,000-barrel cargoes of DSW from BP in the second quarter, but long delays to pay for the purchases forced the vessels to wait for months before discharging. The last cargo on tanker Tulip, which arrived in Curacao in May, set sail to Panama in November without discharging
If refined by Isla, the imported crude could help ease a lack of fuel oil for exports that is causing a bottleneck of vessels around PDVSA ports waiting to load the product
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