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Venezuela has begun importing Iranian heavy crude to feed its domestic refineries, Venezuelan oil company PDVSA announced.
Iran and Venezuela last year initially agreed to a swap deal, with PDVSA importing Iranian condensate to dilute and process its extra-heavy oil for export, Reuters reported.
In return, Venezuelan crude is being shipped via the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC).
Iran’s heavy crude, which is similar in quality to Venezuela’s Mesa 30 crude, is set to augment domestic oil fed to PDVSA’s refineries, according to the documents.
As part of the cooperation pacts, Venezuela in recent years has received Iranian equipment to revamp its refineries. The 146,000-barrel-per-day El Palito refinery is restarting a crude distillation unit this week after extensive repairs and upgrading that relied on equipment imported from Iran.
Iran’s Oil Minister Javad Owji traveled to Venezuela last week to meet Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and discuss trade agreements with his counterpart, Tareck El Aissami.
At least 200,000 barrels of Iranian heavy crude were delivered in mid-April to the 310,000-bpd Cardon refinery, Venezuela’s second-largest. Another 400,000-barrels of Iranian oil, which arrived on the very large crude carrier (VLCC) Dino I, is discharging this week at the country’s Jose port, the documents showed.
