At Risk: 235,000 BOPD Of Venezuelan Heavy Crude Oil --- February 28, 2016

 Updates

March 5, 2016: the vulture has landed. 

February 29, 2016: in the original post I mentioned that I could think of several "vultures" ready to swoop in on PDVSA. Today it's being reported that China gave Petrobras a $10 billion loan in exchange for oil. 

Original Post

 

Reuters is reporting: worse case scenario -- 238,000 bbls of Venezuela heavy oil at risk (archived).

State-run firm PDVSA faces around $5.2 billion in payments to bondholders in 2016, much of it in October and November, a sum that some experts say it will be hard-pressed to meet after the government used nearly all of its available cash reserves to pay $1.5 billion in maturities last week.

A default could curtail some of the OPEC member's exports by crippling its ability to import crude and fuels used to blend its extra heavy oil, experts and sources say.

With the risk growing and payment delays to suppliers already emerging, some firms that sell to PDVSA have begun hedging their bets by using intermediaries or seeking higher prices, fearful they might never get paid, according to sources who deal with the firm.

Without imports of light crudes and diluents like naphtha that have rose to some 110,000 barrels per day (bpd) in 2015, PDVSA may be unable to export an estimated 235,000 bpd of its own heavy blends, according to calculations based on Thomson Reuters trade flows data - a disruption that could help curb an oversupplied global market.

I can think of any number of "vultures" ready to swoop in to "save" PDVSA. China is near the head of the list.

The light oil that Venezuela desperately needs, of course, comes from the US, which could aggravate the oil glut at Cushing.

It was reported on February 2, 2016, that Venezuela was importing light oil from Russia Urals and the United States because its own production of light oil fell short of that needed to blend with its heavy oil.