Washington achieves higher price for Venezuelan oil after change of power in Caracas

(Patria) - US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright stated that the United States is getting a thirty percent higher price for Venezuelan crude oil than Venezuela was getting before US special forces captured President Nicolas Maduro earlier this month, Reuters reported.

"We are getting about thirty percent higher realized price when we sell the same barrel of oil than they were three weeks ago," Wright said at an American Energy Association event.

Wright did not detail the oil sale prices before and after Maduro's arrest.

The United States completed the first sale of Venezuelan oil, which is part of a two-billion-dollar deal reached earlier this month between Caracas and Washington, a US official told Reuters on Wednesday.

The first sale was estimated at 500 million dollars, and additional sales are expected in the coming days and weeks, the official said.

President Donald Trump's administration announced that it would sell up to 50 million barrels of oil and would continue to sell produced Venezuelan oil indefinitely.

In December, oil buyers in Asia sought large discounts on Venezuelan crude oil due to sanctioned oil from Russia and Iran and increased loading risks in that South American country, traders said. Due to oil quality issues and US sanctions, state oil company PDVSA was forced to lower prices.

Given that Russian and Iranian supplies were also selling at steep discounts, buyers in China barely accepted offers for Venezuela's flagship heavy crude oil, Merey, at a price of $14.