Venezuela's oil exports approach 1 million bpd fueled by sales to Asia

By Marianna Parraga

Dec 3 (Reuters) - Venezuela's oil exports jumped last month on higher sales to its mainstay Asia customers, and approached 1 million barrels per day (bpd), a level not seen since early 2020, according to ship monitoring data.

Under U.S. sanctions since 2019, Venezuela's exports of crude and refined products have been highly volatile. Lack of investment and frequent fires and outages at the South American country's aging oil infrastructure put a ceiling on production and sales.

State oil company PDVSA PDVSA.UL, its joint ventures and other state companies last month shipped an average of 974,033 bpd of crude and fuel, mostly to China. It was the second consecutive month of increase, according to Reuters analysis of tanker movements.

November's total represented a 10% increase from a revised average of almost 885,000 bpd in October, and stood 57% above the same month a year ago, the data showed.

Sales to Asia, home to the country's largest buyers, jumped to some 613,000 bpd from 526,000 in October. Shipments to the United States by producer Chevron CVX.N under a license granted by Washington fell to 238,000 bpd from 280,000 bpd the previous month, while exports to Europe increased to 85,000 bpd from 31,000 bpd.

The incoming government of President-elect Donald Trump is expected to revise U.S. policies towards Venezuela, which could lead to license amendments or renegotiations with the administration of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

The export increase happened despite a large explosion and fire at one of PDVSA's main natural gas centers, which hit output of products, including methanol.

Venezuela's exports of oil byproducts and petrochemicals, including methanol and petroleum coke, declined to 330,500 metric tons in November, from 362,000 tons in October, according to the data.

The OPEC country also increased exports to its political ally Cuba to 38,000 bpd from 28,000 bpd the previous month.

Venezuela imported 87,000 bpd of heavy naphtha and gasoline blend stock last month through U.S.-authorized swap agreements with U.S. and European partners, slightly above the 81,000 bpd of October.

(Reporting by Marianna Parraga in Houston and Caracas newsroom, editing by Ed Osmond)

((marianna.parraga@thomsonreuters.com; +1 713 371 7559; Reuters Messaging: @mariannaparraga))