US extends license for Maduro government to import liquefied gas

The United States government issued this Thursday a new general license that authorizes the state-owned company Petróleos de Venezuela and the executive power chaired by Nicolás Maduro to carry out “certain transactions” to import liquefied petroleum gas to that South American nation.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC, for its acronym in English) released general license number 40A to authorize “certain transactions involving the export or re-export or liquefied petroleum gas to Venezuela,” as published by the US Treasury Department in its official website.

The permit includes “all transactions and activities related to the export or re-export, directly or indirectly, of liquefied petroleum gas to Venezuela, involving the Venezuelan government, Petróleos de Venezuela,” or any entity in which the state oil company directly owns or indirectly 50% or more of its assets, including joint ventures.

This Thursday’s license replaces others of a similar nature that were issued in November 2018, January 2019 and August of that same year. The OFAC specified that it is part of its sanctions regulations on Venezuela.

The official document clarifies in its final section that “it does not authorize any payment of oil or its derivatives, or any other activity involving sanctioned persons” and specifies that it is effective as of this Thursday.

The publication of the license occurs at a time when the governments of the United States and Venezuela are making direct contacts to address issues ranging from the economic to the political and humanitarian.

Among the issues discussed by delegates from the White House and Maduro and his representatives in Caracas include the release of political prisoners, the possibility of resumption of energy cooperation and the insistent demand of the United States and the Venezuelan opposition to the Chavista government of return to negotiations provided by the Kingdom of Norway, in Mexico.

Meanwhile, the situation in Europe for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has led the bloc’s leaders, such as French President Emmanuel Macron, to advocating for the incorporation of sanctioned countrieslike Venezuela and Iran, to the world oil and gas market after the Kremlin’s energy veto.

“Best environment” to negotiate

The OFAC document referring to Venezuela is “an extension or renewal of an old license, which has not been used,” he explained to the VOA an expert source in the oil sector and understood in the negotiations on sanctions in that country, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the subject.

“It is used to export liquefied gas to Venezuela. It is the gas that could be used if there is a deficit in domestic gas or industrial gas needs or for power plants, which at some point was being imported to keep them running, because there was none,” the source commented in an off-the-record conversation.

He clarified that it is not an authorization to export gas from Venezuela, which would have been “important” as an incentive to the madurismo to convince him to return to the negotiating table in Mexico City, in his opinion.

According to the informant, there is “a better environment” for the negotiation of old and new general sanctioning licenses against Venezuela. “Deep down, a substantive negotiation is taking place. There are conversations and attempts at negotiations to return to Mexico, but we have nothing firm, “he said.

The chief delegates of the Chavista government and the opposition Unitarian Platform They coincided at the end of June in a forum on conflict mediation and peace processes in Oslo, Norway, while that reign hoped that the political talks between the two blocs would resume shortly.

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