00:00Venezuela crude moving once again into legitimate export channels suggests that a potential feedstock source for regional refineries is becoming
00:09more commercially accessible, says the Energy Chamber of Trinidad and Tobago.
00:13In reference to a recent BBC report on the arrival of a tanker near Chevron's refinery in Mississippi carrying 400
00:22,000 barrels of Venezuelan crude, the Energy Chamber said that for Trinidad and Tobago, the significance of this development is
00:30that it is a potential option to support the country's refining ambitions.
00:35The Energy Chamber noted that matters as Trinidad considers, restarting the Guaracara refinery, which will depend on a mix of
00:44domestic and imported crude, with Venezuelan barrels among the options that can potentially be considered.
00:51The UNC-led government has promised to reopen the state-owned oil refinery in Guaracara, Pointe Pair.
00:59Before the 2025 general election, the former PNM-led government was unable to sell or lease the Dermothbald refinery after
01:07having closed it in late 2018 as part of its restructuring of the state-owned oil company.
01:13The Energy Chamber said the recent shipment of crude from Venezuela to the U.S. points to Venezuelan oil moving
01:20back into major U.S. refining systems in a way that would have been unthinkable only months ago.
01:26An apparent reference to U.S. forces having captured Venezuela's president and his wife at their home in Caracas and
01:34taking them to the U.S.
01:35and what the U.S. government maintains was a law enforcement exercise in January of this year.
01:41The U.S. has since granted a general license for the development of petroleum resources in Venezuela in February.
01:47Last month, the United States Office of Foreign Assets Control announced that it has lifted sanctions against Venezuela's interim president,
01:56Delcio Adriguez.
01:58Venezuela has been reopening its petroleum industry to foreign investment.
02:02The Energy Chamber noted that in January, U.S.-based Chevron said that it was already processing around 50,000 barrels
02:10per day of Venezuelan crude at its refinery in Mississippi
02:13and could take another 100,000 barrels per day at that refinery and another it has in El Segundo, California.
02:21The Energy Chamber said that its January review of TNT crude imports from Venezuela noted that Trinidad once imported a
02:28substantial amount of Venezuelan crude
02:30and that in the year 2000, almost half of the crude imported was imported from Venezuela but that since then,
02:39there was a decline in imports from Venezuela and an eventual halt in 2009.
02:44The Chamber pointed out that Venezuela's own refining system remains under recovery and access to its crude is still shaped
02:52by U.S. licensing and commercial negotiations.
02:56Jewel Brown, TV6 News.
03:02Jewel Brown, TV6 News.
03:02Jewel Brown, TV6 News.
03:02Jewel Brown, TV6 News.
03:03Jewel Brown, TV6 News.
03:03Jewel Brown, TV6 News.
03:03Jewel Brown, TV6 News.
03:03Jewel Brown, TV6 News.
03:03Jewel Brown, TV6 News.
03:03Jewel Brown, TV6 News.
03:03Jewel Brown, TV6 News.
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