Russian oil production giant Rosneft said it had ceased operating in Venezuela and transferred its assets to a company own entirely by the Russian government. The move is apparently intended to shield the company from US sanctions aimed at punishing entities that do business with the government of President Nicolas Maduro.
Spain’s Repsol has suspended its swaps of refined products for crude with Venezuela’s state-run oil company PDVSA, as U.S. officials weigh penalties for foreign firms doing business with Venezuela.
Venezuela has awarded licenses to a unit of Russian oil major Rosneft to develop two offshore gas fields, Rosneft said in a statement.Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro signed the deal during a visit to Venezuela by Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin, it said.
Venezuela has pulled out of a partnership with Cuba in its Cienfuegos oil refinery and the Caribbean island has taken full ownership of the plant, Cuban state media said. Venezuela is grappling with an economic crisis that already forced it to slash cheap oil shipments to Cuba, which has had a knock-on effect on the island’s ailing economy.
Venezuela's state-run PDVSA has reduced crude sales to its U.S. refining unit Citgo Petroleum while increasing supply to Russia's Rosneft, following a plan signed in May to catch up on overdue deliveries, according to PDVSA documents, sources from the company and its joint ventures.
Venezuela's state-run oil company, PDVSA, sent a tanker in October to the Caribbean with the expectation that its cargo of crude would fetch about US$20 million - money the crisis-stricken nation desperately needs. Instead, the owner of the tanker, the Russian state-owned shipping conglomerate Sovcomflot, held the oil in hopes of collecting partial payment on US$30 million that it says PDVSA owes for unpaid shipping fees.
Venezuelan Supreme Court reversal decision to take over the opposition-led congress seems to have yielded to domestic and international pressure, but it still gives embattled populist President Nicolas Maduro broad new powers over the country´s vast oil wealth, which now appears to have been his true target.
Russian President Vladimir Putin labeled the sale of 19.5% of state-owned oil giant Rosneft's shares to the natural resource trader Glencore International and a Qatari sovereign wealth fund for over $11 billion was the biggest sale and acquisition in the world’s oil and gas sector in 2016, the official Kremlin website reported Wednesday.
The global oil market slump looks likely to continue, with prices possibly nearing 70 dollars a barrel in the short term, an official of Russian gas producer Gazprom said. Crude fell more than on dollar a barrel on Thursday to a four-year low below 83 a barrel as growing concerns over the global economy stretched a four-month rout.
Russian state oil company Rosneft has agreed to double its oil supplies to China, in a deal worth 270bn dollars over 25 years. Under the terms of the deal, Rosneft will supply 300.000 barrels of oil a day to China starting in 2015.