The Morning Risk Report: U.S. Approves Business With Venezuela's PdVSA By Mengqi Sun | Dow Jones Risk Journal
Good morning. The U.S. Treasury issued a general license allowing established U.S. businesses
to conduct a broad array of oil transactions with the government of Venezuela and its state oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A., Risk Journal's Max Fillion reports.
The background: The license issued Wednesday builds on previous U.S. moves easing sanctions on the Venezuelan government and PdVSA. In a series of licenses issued since late January, Treasury has authorized specific categories of transactions such as servicing oil fields or selling barrels of crude, but the latest action authorizes transactions with the exception of tailored prohibitions.
The details: The license keeps in place prohibitions on deals related to Venezuela's government debt, including bars on attempts by creditors to seize revenue from oil sales. It also prohibits transactions involving people and businesses otherwise sanctioned by the U.S. as well as those people located in Iran, North Korea, Cuba and Russia. Deals involving businesses controlled by Chinese entities are also prohibited, as are transactions involving sanctioned ships, debt swaps or payments in gold or digital currency, as well as non-commercially reasonable deals.
The context: The action comes amid a surge in global oil prices due to Iran's blocking of the Strait of Hormuz, a vital route for global oil trade, in retaliation for U.S. and Israeli attacks. Brent crude futures, a global benchmark for oil prices, rose to $109 a barrel Wednesday after Israel struck a gas facility shared by Iran and Qatar. Compliance
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Follow us on X at @WSJRisk . Send tips to our reporters Max Fillion at [max.fillion@dowjones.com], Mengqi Sun at [mengqi.sun@wsj.com] and Richard Vanderford at [richard.vanderford@wsj.com].
You can also reach us by replying to any newsletter, or by emailing our editor David Smagalla at [david.smagalla@wsj.com].
This article is a text version of a Wall Street Journal newsletter published earlier today.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 19, 2026 07:07 ET (11:07 GMT)
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