Fuel crisis stirs up tensions in Venezuela

Sporadic looting and clashes have broken out in Venezuela where the US-sanctioned government is struggling to replenish critical fuel supplies, stifling distribution of food and medicine as the coronavirus pandemic claims its first local victims.

One products tanker, the Malta-flagged Gemma that loaded in Italy on 11 March, is currently unloading at the Punto Fijo terminal in western Venezuela, according to local shipping data. Other products tankers are shuttling between Venezuelan ports, but the supplies fall far short of estimated 110,000 b/d of gasoline demand.

Industry minister Tareck El Aissami, who is running state-owned oil company PdV as chair of a restructuring commission, says a strict fuel rationing plan will "guarantee the mobility of priority sectors exempted from collective quarantine." Army and national guard personnel already control the few service stations that remain open.

El Aissami blamed the shortage on escalating sanctions that impede Venezuela's "legitimate access to the financial resources needed to obtain medicine, food and essential services," he said.

El Aissami accused the US of deploying a naval blockade and "repeatedly harassing potential suppliers, preventing the supply of chemical additives, blendstocks and parts" necessary to supply the Venezuelan market. He warned of electricity blackouts.

For years before the US started levying a cascade of financial and oil sanctions on the government of President Nicolas Maduro in 2017, PdV had already been importing finished gasoline and gasoline components from US suppliers to replace the fuel that its refineries were no long able to produce. The oil sanctions cut off the US supply, but PdV continues to obtain some fuel through barter and debt arrangements.

PdV's efforts to patch up its 140,000 b/d El Palito refinery using parts from its other refineries have fallen flat so far.

The US indicted Maduro and more than a dozen associates last week for drugs trafficking and money laundering, and a few days later it stepped up drugs interdiction in Caribbean waters near Venezuela.

Critics say the US is stepping up its anti-Maduro campaign at a time of looming tragedy from the new coronavirus, which has officially claimed seven Venezuelan lives so far. China and Russia have sent in some medical aid, and more is quietly coming in through the Pan American Health Organization.

Opposition leader Juan Guaido, who is recognized by the US and dozens of other countries as interim president in place of Maduro, says fuel would be sourced from PdV's US refining unit Citgo and nearby countries as part of an aid campaign that would be implemented as soon as Maduro is removed.

Citgo is controlled by the opposition since shortly after Guaido declared his interim presidency in January 2019.

Maduro has so far resisted broad efforts to depose him.