The Treasury Department on Thursday issued a general license authorizing companies to transport and sell Venezuelan crude while the country’s oil sector remains under U.S. sanction.
The general license issued by Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control allows for the “lifting, exportation, reexportation, sale, resale, supply, storage, marketing, purchase, delivery, or transportation of Venezuelan origin oil, including the refining of such oil” by companies under certain conditions.
The move will allow additional firms to join in the U.S.-controlled effort to sell Venezuela’s oil, though it is separate from the effort to encourage U.S. oil companies to invest directly in the country. The Trump administration has said the revenues from the crude sales would flow back to benefit the Venezuelan people.
Thus far, the effort had been limited to global commodity trading firms Vitol and Trafigura, which were issued specific licenses for the sales by OFAC earlier this month. The two firms were involved with an initial sale of roughly $500 million in crude that had been accumulating in storage tanks and tankers in Venezuela.
