According to Financial Tribune, The plan to dump the ailing
Venezuelan oil firm is not a result of the new sanctions that the United States
imposed on PDVSA earlier this week. The reason behind the Chinese decision is
the continuously deteriorating finances of Venezuela’s oil company in recent
years, two executives at PetroChina’s parent company China National Petroleum
Corporation told Reuters.
“There will be no role of PDVSA as an equity partner. At least we do
not see that possibility in the near future given the situation the country has
been through in recent years,” one of the executives said.
PDVSA was initially planned to be an equity partner with a 40% stake
in the refinery and petrochemical project, with the refinery originally
designed to process Venezuelan crude oil and to have a capacity of 400,000 bpd.
In the summer of 2018, PetroChina had to reconfigure the
refinery—approved in 2011 but without notable progress since—to be able to process
crude grades other than Venezuela’s, as the Venezuelan production collapse and
deteriorating finances at its oil firm PDVSA were putting future crude oil
supplies at risk, S&P Global Platts reported in July.
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