By Sheila Dang
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas, Feb 26 (Reuters) – Sales under a flagship oil supply agreement between Venezuela and the U.S. are expected to reach $2 billion by the end of this month, U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright told reporters in Texas on Thursday.
The U.S. took control of Venezuela’s oil exports shortly after U.S. forces captured President Nicolas Maduro in early January, with proceeds going to a U.S.-supervised fund in Qatar.
Since then, trading houses Vitol and Trafigura have been marketing and trading the lion’s share of the OPEC country’s oil under the pact, while partners of Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA, particularly Chevron, are boosting output and shipments.
Earlier in February, Wright projected that oil sales from the country would reach $5 billion within a few months.
The export increase is already returning Venezuela’s crude and fuel to markets that had not seen it arriving for months or years.
More customers in Asia and Europe are negotiating deals to import soon, with 40 million barrels expected to have been sold by the end of February at about $50 per barrel, Wright said. The pact’s initial sales target was between 30 million and 50 million barrels, U.S. President Donald Trump had said.
“Most of that oil will go here to the U.S. Gulf Coast, but it’ll go to India, it’ll go to Asia, it’s going to Europe,” Wright said. “Every barrel you produce will be sold, so the question is just where.”
Chinese independent refineries that were previously importing sanctioned oil can now buy Venezuelan crude on the open market, Wright said. Trump has said oil cargoes will only be sold at fair market prices.
Wright also said that millions of barrels of Venezuelan oil currently in floating storage in Venezuelan waters are in the process of being sold.
(Reporting by Sheila Dang and Curtis Williams; Writing by Marianna Parraga; Editing by Jamie Freed)
