Venezuela’s oil exports grew to 713,097 barrels per day (bpd) last month, fueled by shipments to China and Malaysia. The Latin American country’s state-owned oil and natural gas company PDVSA shipped a total of 28 cargoes of crude and refined products in July, Reuters reported citing PDVSA’s exports schedules and vessel tracking data.
The exported volume was up 15.5% compared to June and up 84% increase compared to the average exported in July 2020. A growing number of mostly unknown clients with no record in oil trading have helped PDVSA increase shipments, the news agency said with over 80% of July’s shipments bound for Asian destinations, including China and Malaysia. PDVSA also sent 63,400 bpd of crude and fuel to Cuba, double the volume exported in June, according to the data.
Three of five key crude upgrading and blending facilities operated by PDVSA and its partners
namely the Petromonagas joint venture, located in Venezuela’s Eastern region, the Petrosinovensa and the Petro San Felix projects were operational, a document said.
PDVSA was able to boost loadings for exports at Amuay, off Venezuela’s Western coast where oil is transported from one ship to another, including an increase in shipments of residual fuel oil to Asia and the Middle East to some 275,000 bpd in July, the highest monthly average so far this year.
Venezuela’s oil minister Tareck El Aissami in an interview with Bloomberg in June said that
his country, one of the five founding members of OPEC, would be pumping up to two million barrels of crude oil daily by the end of this year which is four times greater than the 500,000 barrels per day produced during 2020.
OPEC’s July 2021 Monthly Oil Market Report shows that based on direct communications Venezuela pumped an average of 6330,000 barrels per day for June 2021. This represent a 9% increase compared to May and an impressive 67% year-over-year gain.
