MOSCOW (MRC) -- A unit of Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA on the Dutch Caribbean island of Bonaire has declared bankruptcy, citing the impact of US sanctions on Venezuela, reported Reuters with reference to a court filing.
In a March 9 filing published last week by the Court of First Instance of Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba, PDVSA-owned Bonaire Petroleum Corporation (BOPEC) said it could no longer pay its debts because sanctions had cut off its "access to international trade," as well as cash held in bank accounts.
The court granted BOPEC's request for a moratorium on creditor payments in a filing that noted BOPEC said it was negotiating with "a party that may make the necessary liquid assets available" to allow the company to "satisfy its preferred creditors and offer a settlement to its unsecured creditors."
Neither PDVSA nor Venezuela's oil ministry immediately responded to requests for comment.
At its peak, BOPEC had the capacity to store some 10 million barrels of oil and load large vessels from its deep water docks. The company last year was ordered to remove stored oil due to the risk of leaks from its tanks.
PDVSA's contract to operate Curacao's 335,000 barrel-per-day Isla refinery and a neighboring storage terminal ended in December 2019, and PDVSA unit Citgo Petroleum Corp - now under the control of the US-backed opposition to Maduro - last year transferred control of Aruba's San Nicolas refinery to the island's government.
As MRC informed earlier, pressured by strict US sanctions, Venezuela's oil exports plunged by 376,500 barrels per day (bpd) in 2020, according to Refinitiv Eikon data and internal documents from state-run PDVSA, financially squeezing President Nicolas Maduro.
We remind that in December 2020, a tanker chartered by the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) was loading Venezuelan crude for export, documents from state-run PDVSA show, providing evidence of the two countries' latest tactics to expand their trade in defiance of US sanctions. Venezuela and Iran had deepened their cooperation last year as Venezuela had exchanged gold and other commodities for Iranian food, condensate and fuel.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 241,030 tonnes in January 2021 versus 217,890 tonnes a year earlier. Only shipments of low density polyethylene (LDPE) and high density polyethylene (HDPE) increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market reached 141,870 tonnes in January 2021 versus 123,520 tonnes a year earlier. Supply of homopolymer PP and PP block copolymers increased.
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