Venezuela's oil exports remained almost unchanged in August at 1.17 million barrels per day, with a larger flow to India and Europe compensating for lower shipments to the US, its main market, according to documents and vessel monitoring data on Tuesday.
The number of tankers lining up to load and their average waiting time increased last month as the poor condition of state-run PDVSA's terminals and crude quality issues caused longer delays, a roadblock on a US plan to quickly boost the OPEC country's oil exports.
A power blackout in late July that hit all of PDVSA's crude upgraders and blending stations also contributed to the loading delays in August, one of the documents showed.
However, global trading houses including Vitol and Trafigura managed to keep their export volumes stable at some 597,000 bpd, compared to 604,000 bpd in July; while exports of Venezuelan crude by US major Chevron declined slightly to 286,000 bpd from 293,000 bpd the previous month, according to the data.
Venezuela's oil exports to the US averaged some 553,000 bpd, below the record of 786,000 bpd in July. Shipments to India rose 66 per cent from the previous month to 297,000 bpd, while exports to Europe almost tripled to some 260,000 bpd.
The country also imported some 166,000 bpd of fuel last month, mostly US naphtha to dilute its extra-heavy crude output, more than double the 81,000 bpd imported in July, the data showed.
Venezuela's oil exports are expected to change soon following the migration of dozens of oil projects to new contract terms, which allow new supply contracts by PDVSA's partners, who will be able to commercialise their share of output independently.
An ambitious oil production deal recently announced involving Caracas, Washington and US producer North American Blue Energy Partners also is expected to lead to a larger flow of Venezuelan crude to the United States.
(Reporting by Marianna Parraga and Mircely Guanipa; Editing by Julia Symmes Cobb and Chris Reese)