difficulties processing heavy sour Cuban crude and fuel shortages on the island, which depends heavily on imports from Venezuela, for hobbling power generation.
A large fire last year destroyed a portion of the country's largest oil terminal, Matanzas, and has created obstacles to discharge fuel imports. The Panama-flagged supertanker Nolan this week is loading 400,000 barrels of fuel oil for power generation at Venezuela's Jose terminal. It also will load 1.13 million barrels of Venezuelan heavy oil, bringing the total cargo to 1.53 million barrels, according to internal PDVSA shipping documents. The vessel is due to sail later this month. Cuba has very limited capacity to receive large tankers, especially since the Matanzas fire. The Nolan is bound for Matanzas, one of the documents showed, where Cuban state companies have been discharging imports by transferring cargoes to smaller vessels through ship-to-ship operations. Seeking to avoid its own fuel crisis, Venezuela's oil supplies to Cuba last year fell about 6% to 53,600 barrels per day (bpd), independent data based on tanker movement showed.
Nolan, owned by Nigeria-based Thomarose Global Ventures Ltd,
was blacklisted in November by the U.S. Treasury Department
under accusations of being part of an international oil
smuggling network that facilitated oil trades for Hezbollah and
Iran's Quds Force.
PDVSA, Venezuela's oil ministry and Cuba's Center for
International Press did not immediately reply to requests for
comment. Thomarose Global Ventures could not be reached for
comment.
The tanker has not sent a signal from its transponder since
mid-December while in Venezuela, according to Refinitiv Eikon
vessel monitoring data.
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Cuba suffers third major blackout in a week U.S. imposes sanctions on oil smuggling network backing Iran's
Quds Force, Hezbollah ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^>
(Reporting by Marianna Parraga in Houston; Editing by Richard
Chang)
