Serious delays to load and unload vessels at Venezuela’s main crude port started to create a backlog of tankers last week that is now extending to the island of Curacao, according to traders, a union representative and Thomson Reuters data. Some 70 tankers were anchored around state-run PDVSA’s ports in Venezuela and the Caribbean, most of them waiting to load oil for exports and also to discharge imported crude and products, according to Thomson Reuters vessel tracking data. The ensuing backlog is similar to a situation late last year, when PDVSA failed to comply with prepayment contracts agreed with its main oil suppliers. But the accumulation of vessels is not related to payment issues this time and it has formed faster, the data say, jeopardizing crude exports of the OPEC-member country. A union leader and a legislator blamed technical problems with the Jose port’s loading arms that are causing […]