Iran’s SADRA set to seal oil tankers for Venezuela deal

Venezuela plans to contract the construction of two more oil tankers by an Iranian shipyard which has already built and delivered two Aframax vessels to the South American country, a report says.

Under an existing construction agreement, Venezuela's state-run energy firm PDVSA will order Iran Marine Industrial Company (SADRA) to build the two Aframax tankers at the company’s Bushehr shipyard, Reuters reported.  

The two new tankers, to be named India Urquia and India Mara, will cost $33.77 million each, the news agency said, citing an internal PDVSA document detailing the proposed agreement.

PDVSA has increasingly availed itself of the privilege of blossoming relationship between Iran and Venezuela to rebuild its fleet with the help of Iranian companies.

Its maritime operations have suffered from a long-standing lack of capital amid US sanctions that have made it difficult to obtain insurance and operate in international waters.

Reuters, citing an unnamed source, said construction of the India Urquia must start soon. By the end of the contract, PDVSA will have paid Iran about $168.6 million for the four vessels, according to the proposal.  

Iran’s SADRA has built two vessels for PDVSA, the Aframaxes Arita and Anita, that can each carry 500,000-800,000 barrels of oil.

The Arita — now renamed Colon — first set sail in 2017. The Anita departed Iran in late December carrying an Iranian condensate cargo for PDVSA.

According to monitoring firm TankerTrackers.com, two separate vessels chartered by Iran's Naftiran Intertrade Company (NICO), the supertankers Wen Yao and Sea Cliff, are expected to deliver Iranian condensate to Venezuela this month as part of an oil swap with PDVSA.

Both Iranian and Venezuelan oil sectors are under US sanctions that have pushed the two countries closer to boost trade and help each other.

Iran, Venezuela plan for ‘big projects’ in challenge to US

Iran and Venezuela, both petroleum-rich OPEC members, have found solidarity in coordinated geopolitical, economic, and military maneuvers against shared common enemy the United States.

Earlier this month, Venezuelan Oil Minister Tareck El Aissami hailed Iran's experiences in the field of energy and technology, saying his country is willing to benefit from them and forge closer cooperation with Tehran.

Aissami’s remarks during a meeting Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abollahian in Caracas coincided with reports that Iranian and Venezuelan firms would start in the coming weeks a 100-day revamp of the South American nation's largest refining complex to restore its crude distillation capacity.

The effort by PDVSA and the National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company (NIORDC) to boost fuel output at the Paraguana Refining Center marks a step toward ending Venezuela's reliance on US refinery technology, Reuters said.

Venezuela, which has the world's largest crude reserves, has struggled in recent years to produce enough gasoline and diesel due to refinery outages as a result of US sanctions and a political turmoil which also has its roots in Washington.

Tehran has strengthened ties with Caracas in recent years, providing crude and condensate as well as parts and feedstock for Venezuela's aging 1.3 million barrel per day oil (bpd) refining network.

A unit of NIORDC signed a 110-million-euro contract with PDVSA in May to repair Venezuela's smallest refinery, the 146,000-bpd El Palito in the center of the country, a project that is currently underway.

The companies are now expected to sign in the coming weeks a 460-million-euro contract to revamp the 955,000-bpd Paraguana refinery complex on the coast of western Venezuela.

The Paraguana revamp project will allow NIORDC to hire contractors and outsource work to repair five of the complex's nine distillation units, which do the primary refining of crude oil.

According to Reuters, the planned distillation unit overhaul will combine Chinese and Iranian parts and equipment in refineries originally built with US technology.

A project to restore the complex's dilapidated power supply is also planned as part of the revamp, it said.

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