Russia has unseated the US as Venezuela’s primary source of naphtha, a petroleum product it needs to dilute its extra-heavy crude, as Washington’s trade policies push the two sanctioned countries into deeper economic cooperation.
US shipments of naphtha fizzled to zero from March until October, while flows from Russia have totaled more than seven million barrels over the same time frame, according to Kpler. The supplies, equal to about 49,000 barrels a day in August and 69,000 a day in September, also represent the first recorded wave of naphtha deliveries to travel from Moscow to Caracas in nearly six years.