The international oil market risks losing at least 500 barrels a day in the short term due to the worsening crisis in Venezuela, which has now lost access to the plants of its company PDVSA in the former Netherlands Antilles. Creditors have seized its terminals in the Caribbean for processing, storing and exporting crude oil which is in danger of shrinking even further after already losing 900 barrels a day in just a few years.
Basically, for the international oil market, the crisis in Venezuela could become more serious than that of Iran.
In recent days, as Il Sole 24 Ore writes, the American company ConocoPhillips, after winning an international arbitration that awards it 2 billion dollars in compensation for the expropriations of 11 years ago, has already taken control of the PDVSA plants on the island of Bonaire and is seeking to regain assets in Curacao, Arubas and Saint Eustatius.
The Canadian mining company Rusoro is also on a war footing, which is trying to recover compensation of 1,3 billion dollars and has asked to be able to take action against Citgo Petroleum, a subsidiary of PDVSA in the United States.
Conoco's move on Venezuelan plants in the Caribbean has already unleashed a domino effect that could soon have devastating repercussions on Venezuela, severely tested by the dictatorship of President Maduro and now at the end of its strength, and which are destined to weigh heavily on the oil market and on its prices, already pushed up by the Iranian crisis.
