Text by Robert Adams for MID-POINT/PERIÓDICO PUNTO MEDIO…//
PROGRESO, Yucatan — In the far-flung world of oil producers, refiners and shipping lines, all eyes are currently focused on the Gulf of Mexico, and in particular on a stretch of Gulf waters about 60 miles northeast of the Port of Progreso, Yucatan.
In these balmy Yucatecan coastal waters are currently floating — stranded — three massive Venezuelan oil-tanker ships. These Venezuelan tankers, along with some 20 more also stranded in various parts of the Gulf, had been bound for refineries in the United States.
But with the ratcheting-up of U.S. sanctions against the Venezuelan government of President Nicolas Maduro, U.S. oil refiners are cautious about receiving and paying for oil shipments for which they had previously contracted.
“These ships are just hanging out without any clear indication of where they will go,” said Manuel Belostrino, a crude-oil market analyst with Kpler Consulting in Houston, a firm that specializes in tracking international shipping.
“Everyone is trying to figure this out,” Belostrino added. “We just don’t know how this will play out.”
There are about 8.28 million barrels of Venezuelan crude idling all over the Gulf of Mexico in an area that stretches from the Yucatan Peninsula to the U.S. coast, according to cargo-tracking and market intelligence company Kpler. Some of these vessels, like the Monterey, loaded with 400,000 barrels of crude for the Chevron Pascagoula refinery in Mississippi, have been floating for almost 40 days now, according to ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg.
What will become of the stranded vessels and their crews? Belostrino speculated that some of the ships could hold out for quite some time more, if they are provided supplies via smaller boats shuttling from shore. But exactly what supplies, where they will be sourced and how they will be paid for are troubling questions.
Meanwhile, the geo-political tussle between Washington and Caracas drags on, and the impact on Venezuela’s oil industry can only be devastating.
“U.S. refineries were heavily dependent on Venezuelan crude, but they can find it elsewhere,” Belostrino commented. “I share the sentiment that this could mark the end of crude oil exports from Venezuela to the U.S. They are looking to try to sell to China and India now.”
