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KRALENDIJK — Venezuela’s Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A (PDVSA) could lose its license to operate an oil storage terminal it owns on the Dutch island of Bonaire if it does not soon fulfill maintenance demands by regulators, a government spokeswoman said this week.
The terminal is a key part of PDVSA’s logistics in the Caribbean, and its closing could hurt shipments to customers in Asia at a time when the OPEC-member country is desperate for export revenue.
Reeling from low oil prices, high inflation and a four-year-long recession, the country last month proposed to restructure its $60 billion in debt.
Cash-strapped PDVSA, which provides the bulk of Venezuela’s export revenue, has struggled this year to retain contracts for storage tanks and docks in the Caribbean due to past payment delays and disagreements with U.S. firms Buckeye Partners and NuStar Energy, which operate terminals in the Bahamas and St. Eustatius.
In neighboring Bonaire, where PDVSA owns the Bonaire Petroleum Corp. (BOPEC) terminal with a 10-million barrel storage capacity and deep water docks that can load large vessels, the firm recently received a warning from the Dutch government.