HOUSTON, Jan 15 (Reuters) – Several European partners of Venezuela’s state-run oil company PDVSA, including Spain’s Repsol and France’s Maurel & Prom have applied for U.S. licenses or authorizations to export oil from the OPEC country, five industry sources told Reuters.
The requested terms are similar to those granted by Washington in past years, which allowed the companies to receive and export Venezuelan oil for their refineries and other customers, while supplying fuel to Venezuela through a debt-recovery mechanism, two of the sources said.
The companies have not been able to export Venezuelan oil since the second quarter of last year, when the administration of President Donald Trump suspended the licenses. Repsol participated in a meeting last week at the White House, where Trump asked a group of oil companies to invest in Venezuela.
Repsol declined to comment. Maurel & Prom did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
(Reporting by Georgina McCartney, Arathy Somasekhar and Marianna Parraga in Houston; Editing by Nathan Crooks)
