Washington Revokes Oil and Gas License Issued to Venezuela (+Sanctions)

The United States regime has revoked license 44, initially issued in October 2023, in which some of the illegal and unilateral sanctions on the Venezuelan oil and gas sector were temporarily lifted against the Venezuelan people. The new measure was materialized under license 44-A issued by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), an agency attached to the US Treasury Department. This has allowed the empire to resume a limited number of sanctions against Venezuelan oil and gas operations.

The document of the imperial agency, published this Wednesday, April 17, indicates that entities should wind down “transactions involving Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA) or any entity in which PDVSA owns, directly or indirectly, a 50% or greater interest (collectively, “PDVSA Entities”) with a deadline to do so until May 31, 2024.

Mainstream media, reproducing the White House’s narrative, have been trying in recent weeks to create the impression that the recovery of the Venezuelan economy is as a the result of OFAC License 44 issued last October, when in reality, it is the result of the steady and powerful joint work of all actors, sectors, and workers in the Venezuelan economy, which has shown fruition since 2020.

The document specifies that the US regime does not authorize “any transactions involving any financial institution blocked pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13850 other than Banco Central de Venezuela or Banco de Venezuela SA Banco Universal.”

As a second prohibition, it further indicates that “the provision of goods or services to, or new investment in, an entity located in Venezuela that is owned or controlled by, or a joint venture with, an entity located in the Russian Federation,” is also forbidden, thus keeping the same provision that existed in the revoked license against Russia.

It goes on to prohibit: “(3) Any transactions related to new investment in oil or gas sector operations in Venezuela by a person located in the Russian Federation or any entity owned or controlled by a person located in the Russian Federation,” and: “(4) Any transactions prohibited by subsections 1(a)(i) – (iii) or 1(b) of E.O. 13808, other than the payment of invoices for goods or services related to oil or gas sector operations in Venezuela, or delivery of oil or gas from Venezuela to creditors of the Government of Venezuela, including creditors of PdVSA Entities, for the purpose of debt repayment.”

The US measure was made following several days of threats from that country to reimpose sanctions against Venezuela, as well as requests from sectors of the Venezuelan and US extreme right to reimpose unilateral coercive measures as a blackmail tool in their failed attempt to tweak the Venezuelan judicial system and interfere in the upcoming presidential elections.

On Monday, April 15, Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, condemned the fact that the US government has not complied with the agreements signed with Venezuela in the dialogue process, which is aimed at the total lifting of unilateral coercive measures, as well as respecting the Barbados Agreement.

During his Con Maduro+ television program, the Venezuelan president denounced the US intention to condition and control, through their licenses, the operation of the Venezuelan oil industry. “There have been ups and downs in the whole process of talks,” President Maduro said, “and in January we received a threat about the lifting of license 44, a colonialist license. Why is it colonialist? Because the United States intends to monitor and control the Venezuelan oil industry. They want Venezuela to live off the license they give,” he noted, adding, “and then they start, you have to do this, this, this, this, or I take away the license,” he explained, reiterating that Venezuela is not an imperial colony.

Three days earlier, on April 12, when confirming a meeting on the 9th of the current month with a delegation of the Yankee regime, the national government reported that “in that meeting, we reviewed what was agreed in the Doha dialogues between both delegations on migratory matters and the lifting of sanctions. Based on what was agreed in Doha, we pointed out the failure of the US administration to comply with the agreed schedule for the lifting of sanctions.”

*

(Diario VEA) by Yuleidys Hernández Toledo with Orinoco Tribune content