By Nicole Jao, Shariq Khan, Marianna Parraga and Arathy Somasekhar
NEW YORK, Feb 13 (Reuters) – Valero Energy is set to buy up to 6.5 million barrels of Venezuelan crude in March for its Gulf Coast refineries, making it the OPEC country’s top foreign oil refiner since the U.S. impeached President Nicolas Maduro in January, sources said on Friday.
Valero was among the first US refiners to resume imports of Venezuelan crude after the US reached a major $2 billion oil supply deal with the country’s interim government and began easing sanctions. If Valero manages to capture 10 or more loads next month, equivalent to about 210,000 barrels per day, it could overtake US oil major Chevron as the top US refiner of Venezuelan crude.
That would also be the most Venezuelan crude that Valero has processed since the United States first sanctioned the country’s oil industry in January 2019.
Chevron, the only major US oil producer in Venezuela, is expected to increase exports of Venezuelan crude to some 300,000 bpd in March, from 220,000 bpd in January, sources told Reuters last month. Chevron typically refines up to half of those exports at its own refineries, and sells the rest to other US refiners.
A large portion of Chevron’s sales of Venezuelan oil to US refiners typically goes to Valero. In March, Chevron is expected to supply Valero with most of the volume the refiner plans to import, six sources said.
Valero also traded some cargo from trading houses including Trafigura, which were the first companies authorized by the US government last month to join Chevron in the Venezuelan oil trade.
Vitol separately planned three cargoes of naphtha to be delivered to Venezuela’s state-owned company PDVSA between February 22 and March 3, according to a shipping plan seen by Reuters.
The sources warned that the loading schedules have not been finalized and are still subject to revision. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential information.
Vitol and Trafigura declined to comment. Chevron and PDVSA did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
A spokesperson for Valero referred to the comments made by executive Randy Hawkins after his release of the fourth quarter earnings on January 29. In those comments, Hawkins confirmed that Valero was in talks with authorized sellers of Venezuelan crude oil and expected to make “a fairly large part” of its purchases of crude oil in February and March.
Valero, which has the second largest US refining network capable of processing Venezuelan heavy oil, had a long-term supply agreement to buy crude from PDVSA before the US sanctions.