Following the U.S. sanctions, Venezuela’s oil inventories have swelled to a five-year high, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing satellite data—a sign that Venezuelan oil buyers are fleeing and the country sitting on top of the world’s largest crude resources is struggling to sell its oil. At the end of January, the U.S. imposed sanctions on PDVSA to “help prevent further diverting of Venezuela’s assets by Maduro and preserve these assets for the people of Venezuela. The path to sanctions relief for PdVSA is through the expeditious transfer of control to the Interim President or a subsequent, democratically elected government,” Secretary of the Treasury Steven T. Mnuchin said. The sanctions block all payments to PDVSA accounts, and buyers of Venezuelan crude are directed to deposit payments in a separate account, to which PDVSA doesn’t have access. A week after the U.S. sanctions were announced, people familiar with […]