pdvsa

The U.S. Department of the Treasury (bless them) issued fresh sanctions against PDVSA last Friday. A number of tug boats (34) and one oil tanker were added to the list. Targeting the parasitic Cuban dictatorship is paramount to bring an end to chavismo in Venezuela, and there is no better way than disrupting, or altogether stopping, continued transfer of oil to Raul Castro.

A PDVSA source recently shared some puzzling information about operations of Petrozamora, a joint venture between Corporación Venezolana de Petróleo (CVP) and Gazprombank Latin America Ventures B.V., an Amsterdam shell controlled by Boris Ivanov, Christophe Gerard, Francisco Convit and Orlando Alvarado.

There seems to be a degree of discrimination regarding international criminal investigations involving U.S. justice and law enforcement. The whole world was glad to see America putting Sepp Blatter out of business for a little while. When it comes to rampant corruption in oil companies, Petrobras seems to be on everyone's lips, due in our opinion to Sergio Moro's quixotic LavaJato (carwash) probe in Brazil.

The U.S. Treasury Department finally included PDVSA in its sanctions regime against Nicolas Maduro's kleptocracy. The ratcheting up came after the Trump administration recognised Juan Guaidó as interim President of Venezuela. Today, Germany, France, UK, Spain, Austria and Sweden announced their respective recognition of Guaidó, given Maduro's failure to seek a meaningful solution: i.e. call for free and transparent elections.

This site's editor is glad to see that what is published here somehow becomes reality. In September 2018 we argued "SDN / SSI PDVSA, then negotiate", and a few hours ago U.S. Treasury sanctioned PDVSA (see below). Only thing to add is that in whatever talks / negotiations with Nicolas Maduro's regime ever to be had, only one goal ought to be pursued -in our view, and that is to remove his wretched regime from power.

Further to infodio's exclusive about a joint services and offtake agreements signed between PPSA and EREPLA Services LLC, replies to request for comments put to Harry Sargeant have been received from Ali Hasan Rahman (see below). As per Hasan Rahman's comments, OFAC has the last word on the deal.

"As Director of EREPLA Services LLC and EREPLA Trading LLC, I would like to respond to the email that you sent Mr. Sargeant last week.

In response to your specific questions:

Sources in Venezuela report that PDVSA has entered into a service agreement with an American company, allegedly controlled by Harry Sargeant. While no formal announcement has been made, chavista source Aporrea informed on Thursday that PDVSA had penned 14 new deals to ramp up production by 1.025 MBD in 14 different fields, as previously announced by this site back in August.

A penal court in Geneva has ruled in favour of PDVSA in case brought against Helsinge, according to sources. A criminal investigation was launched in early March this year, following complaint filed on 13 February with Geneva's Public Prosecutor's Office by Swiss law firm Canonica Valticos de Preux. It remains to be seen how the ruling will affect energy trading houses Glencore, Trafigura, Vitol, Lukoil and others involved with Helsinge, and indeed the Florida case of PDVSA US litigation Trust.

A source has informed this site that Pedro Binaggia, banker to fugitive Francisco Convit in a $1.2 billion money laundering scheme centered at PDVSA, was instrumental -in bringing to Switzerland's bank EFG International- as much as $1.5 billion as part of a previous money laundering exercise, involving PDVSA, Rafael Ramirez, Juan Andres Wallis, Danilo Diazgranados, Nervis Villa