Exclusive: Venezuela's oil imports slump on payment woes, economic meltdown
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-oil-imports-idUSKCN1102BLAug 25, 2016
Venezuela has not been able to import all the crude and fuel it needs this year to cover shortfalls at oilfields and refineries as state-run PDVSA struggles to pay suppliers on time, according to trade sources and internal company data seen exclusively by Reuters.
The decline is the largest in five years as the worst economic crisis in decades undermines PDVSA's ability to buy oil imports, which fell 21 percent in the first seven months of this year to 154,465 barrels per day (bpd), the data showed.
Venezuela is also on track to suffer its steepest annual oil output drop in 14 years after years of state mismanagement and under investment.
Risk-averse suppliers are refusing to discharge cargoes to cash-strapped PDVSA without being paid first, unusual in an industry in which buyers normally have 30 to 60 days to pay after delivery. Others have stopped dealing with PDVSA entirely as it resorts to bartering its own oil in swap deals, according to traders and a company source who was not authorized to speak publicly.
"We have no more access to purchases under any type of credit. We are importing under two mechanisms: prepayment and swap," said the source, who did not want to be identified.
PDVSA's oil import needs started growing in 2012 after a severe explosion hit its largest refining complex, Paraguana. Output since then has been hobbled....
