Expanded oil export contract reviews at Venezuela's state-run PDVSA have nearly halted all commercial crude and fuel releases, as officials seek to match past invoices with payments, according to documents and people familiar with the matter.
An anti-corruption probe has led to the recent arrests of about 20 PDVSA employees, judges and politicians, and prompted the resignation of powerful oil minister Tareck El Aissami. An oil export suspension that first began in January under El Aissami has worsened, internal documents showed.
Across Venezuela's export terminals, only four PDVSA customers were active this week: Iran's Naftiran Intertrade Company , U.S.-based ChevronNICO, Chevron and Cubametales are taking cargoes as compensation for pending debt or oil swaps, which reduces PDVSA's risk of failed payments. Hangzhou Energy's contract is the only one so far ratified after the audit, according to one of the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
A bottleneck of tankers waiting for PDVSA to allocate export cargoes has worsened, according to PDVSA's schedules and vessel monitoring service TankerTrackers.com. Contributing to the shipping delays: Privately-owned shipping agencies working for PDVSA and its customers were placed on hold to revise their registration documents, the people said. Only two agencies continued to service companies.
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