Venezuela oil surge to Caribbean
Venezuelan exports topped about 1 million barrels per day in March, with more shipments routed to Caribbean storage terminals — a move that raises regional tanker and terminal activity. (x.com) Increased oil traffic and storage use can add freight volumes and competing berth demand near key Caribbean hubs. (x.com)
The March jump was not just about Venezuela pumping more oil. Traders were also changing the route, sending more cargoes into Caribbean tank farms first and then holding or reselling them from there, which turns islands such as Curacao, St. Lucia and the Bahamas into staging points instead of simple pass-through stops. (energynow.com, bloomberg.com) That matters because storage islands create a second layer of shipping activity. A tanker may load in Venezuela, discharge into shore tanks in the Caribbean, and then a different ship may pick up the oil for the final trip to India, the United States or Europe, which increases berth use, tug demand and vessel traffic around those hubs. (energynow.com, bairdmaritime.com) The scale-up was sharp in March. Ship-tracking data cited by Reuters showed 60 vessels leaving Venezuelan ports with an average 1.09 million barrels a day of crude and refined fuel, up from about 737,000 barrels a day in February, plus roughly 360,000 metric tons of petrochemicals — oil-derived products such as feedstocks and other byproducts used by industry. (energynow.com, marinelink.com) The Caribbean leg has been building since January. Bloomberg reported on January 20 that two tankers delivered about 2.5 million barrels of Merey — Venezuela’s flagship heavy crude grade, a dense oil that often needs blending and specialized handling — into storage in St. Lucia and Curacao, with more cargoes headed to the Bahamas. A day later, Bloomberg reported that traders including Vitol and Trafigura were parking roughly 9 million barrels across Curacao, the Bahamas and St. Lucia. (bloomberg.com, bloomberg.com) The shipping effect comes from vessel size as much as volume. Baird Maritime reported that Venezuelan exports have been moving in Aframax and Panamax tankers — mid-sized oil carriers commonly used in regional trades — and in Suezmax tankers, which are larger ships often used for long-haul crude movements, to Caribbean terminals where the oil is stored and then re-exported. That mix can crowd terminals because each transfer needs tank space, pilotage, berths and scheduling windows, even before the oil reaches its final buyer. (bairdmaritime.com) The immediate driver of March volumes was demand from Indian refiners and the use of Caribbean storage by trading houses, according to Reuters. That makes the surge look less like a one-off port anomaly and more like a deliberate export system: move crude out of Venezuela quickly, park it in nearby tanks, and then optimize the final sale and shipping route from there. (energynow.com)
