pdvsa

Reuters reported days ago that U.S. Treasury had granted a license to Trinidad & Tobago to develop, manage, and market gas produced in Venezuela's Dragon Field. Trinidad's National Gas Company (NGC), Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) and Shell would expectedly be jointly in charge of development, production, operational and marketing aspects. Payment -for such gas- would be made by Trinidad & Tobago to Venezuela in humanitarian aid.

UPDATED (see below) - A while ago some intriguing news came from Curaçao about Isla refinery (Google translation): "That Caribbean Petroleum Refinery (CPR) would have problems with the 'proof of funds' in connection with the intended takeover of the operation of the Isla refinery is denied by the management of government-owned company Refineria di Kòrsou (RdK)... The fact is that the negotiations to arrive at a Heads of Agreement, HoA or outline agreement, are

Alex Saab is in jail and is not coming out any time soon. That presented Nicolas Maduro & co with a problem: who could take his place in schemes to avoid U.S. Treasury sanctions, now that American justice had caught up? Enter Theon Ali* and Ensa Energia: a Trinidadian proxy with a shell registered in Labuan.

The case of Nynas qualifies as one of the most brazen corporate raids seen in Venezuelan owned assets. Before Trump administrations' sanctions, PDVSA was Nynas' majority shareholder with a stake of over 50%. The rest was owned by Finland's Neste group. Treasury sanctions on PDVSA caused a great deal of disruption, which pushed Nynas to the brink of bankruptcy.

Developing story: GUNVOR COLOMBIA SAS, a subsidiary of Gunvor, has been caught participating in an elaborate trade scheme involving PDVSA crude. The crude produced in Venezuela was being exported as "residual oil" to Curaçao and Panama, and then delivered to Swiss Terminal's (subsidiary of Houston-based SGR Energy) storage in Barranquilla. On the import side there were Petroworld SAS, La Operadora SAS, Krystal Energy SAS.

There is one record that distinguishes the administrations of Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro with previous governments in Venezuela: amount of international lawsuits brought against PDVSA. Reasons are varied, but it all comes down to yet another unique characteristic of both Chavez and Maduro: total disregard for contracts and its legally binding aspects. Law is not something that was ever going to stand in the way of the Bolivarian Revolution. If it could not be amended on the fly to suit revolutionary needs, it would just be ignored.

The latest regarding novel ways for PDVSA to continue laughing at U.S. Treasury sanctions involves an offshore jurisdiction that was never featured among usual suspects: Labuan International Business and Financial Centre. Companies registered in Labuan are a bit like the old bearer shares structures of other jurisdictions: UBO records related to any given company are only to be made available to enquiring parties if the UBO allows it.

The Objective brings quite a scoop today: PDVSA retained Baltasar Garzon to act in some corruption cases in the Spanish jurisdiction. The cases involve procurement at BARIVEN, and appear to focus, particularly, on Roberto Rincon and Abraham Shiera. Eulogio del Pino signed for PDVSA, establishing objectives and association with ILOCAD, which is Garzon's shop.

This site has been critical of U.S. Treasury sanctions towards PDVSA / Venezuela. We have argued that, as implemented, sanctions were akin to a haphazard siege: cut access to main / back entrances, leave all other entry points open. We have reported how, despite sanctions, PDVSA hasn’t stopped trading its crude, assisted by a never ending queue of operators who are not American, i.e. do not have to observe / comply with Treasury sanctions. A lot of money has been made on the back of sanctions.

UPDATED 26/07/2021 - A few days ago a source informed this site that Bitumina Industries Limited had filed for bankruptcy in London. We tweeted about it and put the question to the London Gazette, which kindly came back today with corroboration. What this means is that Nynas largest shareholder (Bitumina's 49.9%) is out of the game.