(Bloomberg) -- Chevron Corp. is looking to replace Venezuelan oil at its refineries with supplies from Mexico, Brazil and the Middle East after the Trump administration ordered the company to shut operations in the South American country.
The US supermajor mostly uses heavy Venezuelan crude at its Pascagoula refinery in Mississippi and will seek alternative feedstock once the wind-down period ends in about a month, Andy Walz, Chevron’s president for downstream, midstream and chemicals, said in an interview at the CERAWeek by S&P Global conference in Houston.
“We would be looking for a heavy replacement, largely,” Walz said on the sidelines of the event Wednesday. “It could be from Latin America, the Middle East, Mexico potentially, depending on what happens with tariffs.”
US President Donald Trump’s plan to impose levies on Mexican and Canadian crude further complicate refiners’ efforts to replace Venezuelan crude with similar characteristics. Chevron will look at a slate of crudes around the world to see what’s most attractive, Walz said. Brazil and the Partitioned Zone shared by Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, where Chevron also operates, are viable options, he added.
“Venezuela was sanctioned for several years under the previous administration and we went and sourced crude from other places,” Walz said. “We’re going to follow the rules.”
The Office of Foreign Assets Control revoked Chevron’s license to produce oil in Venezuela earlier this month, giving it a 30-day window to wind down operations. Chevron mostly shipped those supples to the US Gulf Coast where refineries are optimized to run heavy crudes.
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