Over 24m barrels of crude waiting to be shipped from Venezuela ports: data

[CARACAS] Venezuela's growing bottleneck of tankers has caused delays to export over 24 million barrels of crude that were supposed to be shipped days ago from the Opec-member country's main oil port, according to Reuters data.

Venezuela's state-run PDVSA in recent days notified customers that a new ship-to-ship operation will be installed off the nation's western coast to ease congestion at its Jose port, which is delaying key exports already affected by low oil output.

But while PDVSA and its buyers negotiate who will pay for the costs of the oil transfers, tankers continue piling up at Jose and the Paraguana Refining Center (CRP). As of June 6, over 80 tankers were waiting in Venezuelan waters, half of them to load crude and refined products for exports, according to the data.

Customers waiting for cargoes include US Chevron Corp, India's Nayara Energy and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC).

REUTERS