RdK to resell stored Venezuelan crude, blendstock

Curacao's state-owned RdK plans to resell close to 865,000 bl of locally stored Venezuelan crude, products and blendstock that it acquired at an 11 June auction.

RdK was the sole bidder at the auction, which was conducted by Curacao's state-owned CRU, a utility company that serviced the 335,000 b/d Isla refinery formerly operated by Venezuela's state-owned PdV.

The bulk price at which RdK acquired the oil was not disclosed. Some of the revenue will be used to cover Isla's legacy debts to CRU.

The purchase includes crude, fuel oil, naphtha, slops, aviation gasoline, butane and isopentane, among others. The slops are left over from Isla's former production of Group I and naphthenic base oils.

RdK told Argus the crude and oil products will be processed or blended before they are marketed at an unspecified date.

Curacao's Dutch-controlled government is currently in the final stages of negotiating an operating contract for the long-idle refinery, together with the terminal and CRU, with consortium Corc.

Corc's lead partner is Dick and Doof, a Dutch contractor that formerly serviced Shell's Caribbean and Latin American downstream assets. The refinery was built by Shell over a century ago.

The auction closes one of the final chapters in the island's legacy commercial relationship with PdV, which neglected maintenance and lacked feedstock to keep the refinery operating in the final years of its long-term lease.

Trading company Mercuria is currently using storage tanks at Bullen Bay under a short-term lease signed in December 2020.

Curacao was a key part of PdV's Dutch Caribbean logistical network that also included Aruba. The once-thriving Venezuelan company, which has been subject to US sanctions since January 2019, is struggling to keep its domestic operations afloat.

PdV still controls the 10mn bl Bopec storage terminal on the island of Bonaire, but Dutch authorities have determined that the tanks and jetties are too deteriorated to carry out a safe auction of the fuel oil stored there.

Bonaire is part of the Netherlands, unlike Curacao, which is an autonomous member of the Dutch kingdom.

By Patricia Garip