Americas Daily Oil Summary: Diminishing Hope for Venezuela Deal

The Biden Administration has signalled that it could reimpose sanctions on Venezuela tomorrow in response to what it sees as a failure of Maduro to meet his commitments to free and fair elections, according to Reuters.

• Last minute negotiations to try and salvage some progress between Venezuela and the US towards establishing free and fair elections have so far come up short.
• EIA Weekly US Petroleum Summary - w/w change week ending Apr 12: Crude stocks +2,735 vs Exp +1,427. Crude production 0, Gasoline stocks -1,154 vs Exp -940, Implied mogas demand +50, Distillate stocks -2,760 vs Exp -369
• In Canada, Western Canadian Select’s discount in Alberta to WTI shrunk to $11.80/b, the narrowest since July 11, according to Bloomberg citing General Index pricing.
• Canadian oil sand maintenance is forecast to peak at around 238,000 bpd of production being taken offline in Q2 according to union representatives.
• Petroleos Mexicanos executives expect refining at the Olmeca refinery (Dos Bocas) to reach 340kb/d by September according to Bloomberg.
• USD: Lower core rates on Wednesday have had little impact on G10 currencies throughout the session, with any dollar weakness perhaps offset by the renewed negative sentiment across equity markets. The USD index sits moderately in the red, however, has broadly been consolidating at its most recent lofty levels.