The Maduro regime ordered the rationing of diesel supplies to transporters and exacerbated fuel shortages

State-owned company Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) has started rationing diesel supply to carriers in this South American countryAccording to four industry sources, at the same time as fuel imports are dropping due to US sanctions and the crisis at the refining complex continues.

The restrictions became apparent on Friday when some gandola drivers blocked a central highway in the country to protest the diesel shortage and the footage circulated on social media.

Unprecedented rationing could cause delays in the shipment of imported products and industry, especially the food processing industry., in a country mired in a long recession and hyperinflation, trade sources warned.

The first failures in diesel supply began last year when the country began to suffer from a widespread gasoline shortage. Nicolás Maduro, by importing gasoline from Iran, reduced the heavy subsidies on its price. Diesel is still distributed free to carriers.

The move left decades of frozen prices behind that they had made Venezuela the country with the cheapest gasoline in the world.

“We are talking about unparalleled difficulty in recent times”, Said Jesús Rodríguez, president of the Chamber of Commerce of the coastal town of Puerto Cabello, seat of the largest container port in the country facing the Caribbean Sea.

PDVSA limits the supply of diesel to between 100 and 200 liters per truck, and many drivers have to wait in line for days to refuel, said Jonathan Durvelle, president of the Regional Freight Chamber, a union that brings together carriers. with units capable of storing up to 1,200 liters of diesel.

“If we don’t know how to mobilize our vehicles, we cannot mobilize the products”Durvelle said, noting that half of the country’s freight transport runs on diesel.

Neither PDVSA nor the oil and information ministries immediately responded to requests for comment on the rationing allegations.

The shortage comes after the United States last year banned oil companies from supplying diesel to PDVSA in exchange for crude, amid mounting sanctions applied by then-President Donald Trump’s administration to make pressure in vain for the departure of Maduro from power, accused of fraud. to be re-elected in 2018.

Diesel suppliers, including Reliance Industries Ltd in India and advocacy groups concerned about the humanitarian impact of the shortage, have urged new US President Joe Biden to lift the diesel trade ban.

Venezuela has not received any cargo of imported diesel since Reliance’s final arrival in November., as data from Refinitiv Eikon shows.

A White House official said Reuters last week that the administration was “in no hurry” to relax sanctions, in the face of some concessions from Maduro, who blames the measures for shortages and serious economic crisis.

Private estimates place Venezuelan diesel consumption between 35,000 and 49,000 barrels per day (b / d). Diesel is also widely used in agriculture, power generation, and public transport. Farmers have warned for months that the shortage is jeopardizing plantings and crops.

The 400-kilometer round trip between Puerto Cabello and the capital Caracas requires at least 400 liters of diesel, according to José Petit, president of the Asotracontainer industrial group, which represents the Puerto Cabello carriers.

PDVSA’s refining complex, which is operating at a fraction of its 1.3 million bpd capacity, after years of divestment and lack of maintenance, produced around 37,000 bpd of diesel in February, a said Antero Alvarado, managing partner in Venezuela of the consulting firm Gas Energy Latin America.

As of February, PDVSA had stocks of around 4 million barrels of diesel, Alvarado said.

A worker at PDVSA’s Paraguaná refining complex, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the company prioritized gasoline production over diesel production.

(With information from Reuters)

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