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U.S. emerged as first destination of Venezuela's crude

exports

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Outages reduced stocks of exportable diluted crude oil

By Marianna Parraga and Mircely Guanipa

HOUSTON/MARACAY, Aug 5 (Reuters) - Venezuela's oil

exports fell in July as crude processing units were hit by

outages, reducing stocks available from the country's main

producing region and increasing delays to load cargoes,

according to documents and vessel monitoring data.

The OPEC country's exports had recovered in previous months

helped by U.S. licenses and authorizations to partners of state

oil company PDVSA, but domestic operational issues

knocked down the volume of crude and fuel shipped to the second

lowest monthly level this year.

A total of 38 cargoes departed from Venezuela's waters last

month carrying an average of 585,600 barrels per day (bpd) of

crude and fuel, and 266,000 metric tons of oil byproducts and

petrochemicals, the documents and data from LSEG showed.

Oil exports were 26% lower than the previous month, and 33%

below the same month of 2023. Shipments of byproducts and

petrochemicals including petroleum coke and methanol declined

26% from June.

The data showed the U.S received some 281,260 bpd, the main

destination of Venezuela's oil exports for the first time since

Washington began imposing energy sanctions on the country in

2019. It was followed by China with 231,400 bpd.

U.S. producer Chevron ( CVX ) reached its second highest

monthly export level this year, shipping some 238,0000 bpd to

U.S. ports. Spain's Repsol, which in July began selling

Venezuelan crude to U.S. customers, shipped 102,000 bpd to the

U.S. and Europe.

Upgraders and blending stations that process the extra heavy

oil produced at Venezuela's vast Orinoco Belt did not work near

full capacity in July, an internal PDVSA document showed.

Projects Petrolera Sinovensa and Petrocedeno had brief

operational interruptions due to equipment malfunctioning, while

an outage left a third project's upgrader, Petromonagas, out of

service since early July.

Low inventories of fuel oil and some crude grades from the

Orinoco Belt, including diluted crude oil (DCO), and the need of

loading cargoes through ship-to-ship transfers increased

shipping delays PDVSA has been facing since early this year.

A disputed election in Venezuela in which both incumbent

President Nicolas Maduro and the opposition coalition's

candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez, claimed victory has slowed down

economic activity in recent days while triggering widespread

protests and arrests.

But PDVSA's main operations, including crude production and

refining, have been working without major interruptions.