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. Therefore a great move by Treasury, for which Venezuelans must be thankful, although I still think that the measure could be made more effective by adding to the list the following tankers:
- Aquila
- Carlota C
- Georgia M
- Impros
- Isarstern
- Iver Exact
- Iver Express
- Leonora Victory
- Nedas
- New Hellas
- New Horizon
- Nord Snow Queen
- Ocean Elegance
- Pearl
- Petion
- S-Trotter
- Sandino
- Sea Rider
- Sigloo Hav
The above tankers have delivered over 36 million barrels of crude oil and derivatives to Cuba since beginning of 2017. Taking average oil price from here, that represents a net transfer of over $2.1 billion USD. In all cases, the "client" of PDVSA has been Cubametales, a CUPET subsidiary.
Just in the month of March 2019, over 1 million barrels were delivered to Cubametales by Impros, S-Trotter and Nedas tankers. This bleeding of resources, to prop up two dictatorships, needs to be stopped.