Petrocaribe still in business, but changed fuel supplier

Petrocaribe is still in business, but the company has changed its fuel supplier.

Petrocaribe is an oil alliance between some Caribbean states and Venezuela which allows the countries to purchase oil on preferential payment terms.

But financial sanctions imposed by the United States (US) on Venezuela are having a negative impact on this region’s Petrocaribe agreement, as Petrocaribe is unable to get fuel from Venezuela.

The last shipment of fuel from Venezuela arrived here last May and Petrocaribe now purchases fuel from either Rubis or SOL, based on pricing. The majority of the fuel is however purchased from SOL.

Last week, Prime Minister Gonsalves said that Petrocaribe buys fuel from one of the suppliers and supplies VINLEC.

“Because of the nature of how the trade is, VINLEC gets the [same] price. We have a plant, the Hugo Chavez Storage Plant where we have a lot of storage capacity. “We can store a lot of fuel there…, the Prime Minister explained.

He added, “You see a lot of people don’t understand this, you don’t have to have a refinery to trade in fuel. There are companies that trade in fuel. SOL does not have a refinery, Rubis doesn’t have one, Texaco before they left here didn’t have a refinery in these parts so that’s how it is done.”

Gonsalves noted that there are some countries that lock out private sector suppliers, but the government here never went that route and as a result, Petrocaribe supplied fuel principally to VINLEC as well as supplying Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG).

“You would notice again, I don’t want to say something today about the care and the vision which with we proceed with energy security…,” stressed Gonsalves.

He noted also that fuel for VINLEC’s Cane Hall power plant is provided by private suppliers because it is cheaper to take the fuel from Arnos Vale to Cane Hall than from Lowmans Bay to Cane Hall.

It was also noted that Rubis has a facility at the Argyle International Airport (AIA) that supplies jet fuel while gas, diesel and most of the LPG are supplied by SOL and Rubis.