About 800,000 bl of crude from Venezuela has shipped under eased US sanctions and is set to arrive at Chevron's 369,000 b/d refinery in Pascagoula, Mississippi, next week.
The Aframax Caribbean Voyager loaded with about 380,000 bl of a Merey-type upgraded crude left Venezuela's Jose terminal on 7 January and is set to arrive in Pascagoula near or on 18 January, according to ship tracking data from Vortexa.
The Sealeo, also loaded with 380,000 bl of Merey-type crude, is bound for the same destination, arriving in the same time frame, after receiving a ship-to-ship transfer of crude offshore of the Jose terminal. The port handles crude from Chevron's PetroPiar joint venture with state-owned PdV.
Other sources have confirmed the cargoes are bound for Chevron's refinery, which is equipped to handle the heavy crude.
Chevron is ramping up production again in its joint ventures with state-owned PdV in the wake of the US easing some sanctions against Venezuela last year.
But infrastructure issues from years of neglect are slowing some exports. These include a lack of dredging at Lake Maracaibo, near Venezuela' oldest oil producing areas to the west of the Jose terminal, which is forcing ships to use transfers and other maneuvers.
A Chevron source said the conditions are not delaying exports but do "limit us to a maximum cargo of 250,000 bl per ship" in Lake Maracaibo. Ship-to-ship transfers are taking place near state-owned PdV's nameplate 635,000 b/d Amuay refinery in Falcon state, near the Punta Cardon port. But other sources said the conditions are a time constraint.
The Beauty One, a tanker built in 1993, may have been used in such a ship-to-ship transfer to first navigate shallower channels in Lake Maracaibo before moving Boscan asphaltic-type crude from the PetroBoscan JV to a larger ship. The Kerala, a ship retained by Chevron, is awaiting orders inside the Lake Maracaibo channel.
Very large crude carriers are unable to navigate Lake Maracaibo as it has not been dredged since at least 2015, analysts told Argus.
"No doubt, we need to resume maintenance of the lake's channel," a Venezuelan oil chamber source said. "That used to be a routine thing."
Chevron sources in the US and PdV in Caracas declined to comment.
