Adds details on origin of crude
Venezuela has sent a 'gift' of a tanker of 1mn bl of crude to the US, President Donald Trump said on Tuesday on his way to receive the shipment in Corpus Christi, Texas, according to the White House.
"We're going to accept a million barrels of oil, and I'm going to give it to you people to use it the way you want," Trump told reporters in Washington before traveling to Texas, where secretary of state Marco Rubio was set to join him. "And we're going to have oil prices ... dropping very sharply very soon."
The shipment carried on two tankers was part of the US government's right to purchase 20pc of North American Blue Energy Partners' (Nabep) production at cost under a deal reached in August, Nabep said.
"This first shipment since the US-Nabep deal will be followed by thousands of such arrivals, and each one shows the world that Venezuela is back as a dependable energy supplier, with the United States as its anchor buyer," Nabep chief executive Alejandro Betancourt said.
The US had not disclosed the provenance of the crude. The US has imported around 500,000 b/d of crude from Venezuela between January-July, according to the US Energy Information Administration.
Trump during the rally in Corpus Christi also proposed making Venezuela another US state, as he has about other countries.
"Maybe someday soon it will become a prosperous 51st state," Trump said. "Let's make it the 51st state."
Trump's visit to Corpus Christi on Tuesday inadvertently invoked another event he attended on 27 February, when he used a US-confiscated tanker carrying Venezuelan crude anchored at the port as a backdrop for a speech touting his energy accomplishments.
Trump on the same day made the decision to begin a war with Iran, which has caused a major disruption in global oil and gas supply and has significantly raised US domestic fuel prices.
Trump's visit on Tuesday, to campaign for the Republican senatorial candidate, is one of many campaign stops he has made to Texas and other states that he comfortably won in 2024 in a bid to prevent a possible loss of Republican control of Congress.
Trump did not detail any financial terms of the Venezuelan crude he claimed to be accepting as a gift. The US has been pressing Venezuela to increase its crude production since its incursion on 3 January.
Rubio asserted on Monday night that the US-administered takeover of sales of Venezuelan crude has given it access to "the global market", doing away with previous sales to China to help settle debts to Beijing, estimated at $10bn-$12bn.
But Argus assessments show that Venezuelan Merey crude delivered to the US Gulf coast was at a discount of $23.00/bl to Ice Brent as of Monday. That discount is wider than what Venezuelan crude delivered to buyers in Shandong, China, used to fetch prior to January.
The US controls Venezuela's crude export revenue through a fund managed by the US Department of the Treasury that is being paid to Venezuela on "a monthly and biweekly basis via a process that has been created", Rubio said.
Rubio has also defended the deal with Nabep despite criticism from some in Venezuela's political opposition, including recently returned leader Maria Corina Machado, that Caracas ceded too much.
"Once people understand what the deal means, it's just a portion of the overall energy sector in Venezuela," Rubio said. "Whether it was us or the Chinese or the Russians, someone was going to be in business ... we think they [Venezuelans] are better off being in business with us."
