PdV imports light crude, first since 2014

Venezuela's national oil company PdV is unloading a cargo of Nigerian light sweet crude at its Jose terminal today, the first such import since 2014.

The 975,000 bl shipment of Agbami crude aboard the Chinese-owned Spring Splendor tanker is earmarked for blending with Venezuelan extra-heavy Orinoco crude, a senior PdV official tells Argus.

PdV operates the Sinovensa heavy crude blending plant in a joint venture with Chinese state-owned CNPC. The project has a capacity to produce around 90,000 b/d of crude from the eastern Carabobo section of the Orinoco heavy oil belt, and produce 165,000 b/d of blended crude at the Jose plant.

The Nigerian crude, which is scheduled to unload today off the Hong Kong-flagged VLCC, will be blended with Orinoco crude to produce 16°API Merey for export to China, the PdV official said.

Sinovensa and three operational heavy crude upgraders that PdV runs with other foreign partners at Jose have been struggling to sustain operations in the face of declining feedstock and unstable power supply. PdV's domestic crude production has fallen below 1mn b/d and supply of imported naphtha used to dilute 8-10°API Orinoco crude is limited by US sanctions since 28 January.

Sinovensa has weathered the challenges better than the upgraders, in part because CNPC is more directly involved in the plant's operation than PdV's other partners.

China is a regular offtaker from PdV, which services billions of dollars in debt to Beijing with a steady supply of Venezuelan crude, mainly Merey.

PdV last imported light crude in 2014 during programmed upgrader maintenance.

It was not immediately clear how the sanctioned Venezuelan company paid for the imported crude. CNPC has previously offered to import crude on its own to maintain the blending operations, the PdV official said.