PdV delays oil dock repair to 5 Nov

Venezuelan state-owned PdV notified tanker operators that the Jose terminal's south dock will not resume oil loading and offloading operations until 5 November, two local shipping agents tell Argus.

The new restart date marks the fourth time PdV has pushed back its deadline for completing repairs of unspecified structural damage caused by a tanker collision over the weekend of 25-26 August.

The incident occurred when the Greek-flagged Meganisi tanker collided with the dock during operations to offload a cargo of naphtha earmarked for diluting with Orinoco extra-heavy crude.

PdV initially advised tanker operators and shipping agents that the dock would resume normal operations by 23 September. But PdV later pushed back the deadline to 2 October, then 11 October and later 20 October.

A PdV official at Jose blamed the repeated delays on US financial sanctions that have blocked the company from securing international credit to finance the purchase and importation of replacement parts.

PdV's main export terminal of Jose consists of three docks (east, west and south) and two monobuoys with total nameplate crude handling capacity of 1.5mn b/d integrated with PdV's 600,000 b/d heavy crude upgrading and 130,000 b/d blending installations on the coast of Anzoategui state.

PdV has partially offset the loss of the south dock by diverting some loading and offloading operations to the nearby port of Guaraguao in Puerto La Cruz.

Additional flexibility has come from the resumption since last month of PdV´s Dutch Caribbean logistics operations that had been blocked by court-ordered attachments levied by arbitration claimant ConocoPhillips.

PdV reached a settlement over the $2bn debt with the US independent on 20 August, and is due to pay a first $500mn installment in November, 90 days after the settlement was reached.

Shipping executives said the deal with ConocoPhillips allowed the export during September of about 282,000 b/d of crude, including 198,000 b/d through PdV´s Bopec terminal on Bonaire and leased Nustar facilities on St. Eustatius. Another 94,000 b/d were shipped from the islands of Curacao and Aruba last month, the shipping executives added.