Venezuela receives $300m in proceeds from first US oil sale
Interim president Delcy Rodriguez said the money from US sales of Venezuelan oil will be used to prop up the currency
Venezuela has received the first proceeds from a US sale of Venezuelan crude oil, following the capture of President Nicolas Maduro by the United States earlier in January.
The US announced last week that it had completed a $500 million sale of Venezuelan crude oil.
"We should inform you that we have gotten funds, from the sale of oil, and we have gotten, of the first $500 million, $300 million," interim leader Delcy Rodriguez said at an event in Caracas on Tuesday.
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Rodriguez said she would use the first $300 million (€256 million) from the sale to prop up her country's battered currency, the bolivar.
The funds would be used to "stabilize" the foreign exchange market "to protect the income and purchasing power of our workers," she said.
Details of the US oil sale are unclear. But news agency Reuters reported at the time that Venezuelan crude was being offered at a discount to traders compared to similar oil from other countries.
Venezuela to debate reforms to oil contract laws
Meanwhile, Venezuela's lawmakers are scheduled to debate oil-sector reforms this week.
Expected reforms include loosening the control of the state oil and gas company PDVSA over new investment.
The country's hydrocarbon law currently requires foreign partners to work together with PDVSA, which must hold the majority stake.
Venezuela is now looking to expand and formalize partnership-style contracts first introduced under Maduro.
National Assembly president Jorge Rodriguez (who is Delcy Rodriguez's brother) said on Tuesday that such contracts are "a fundamental element to be expressed in the law's reform."
Potential foreign investors have called for urgent legal reform in the Latin American country before committing significant capital.
Venezuela is said to hold the world's largest crude oil reserves but the type of extra heavy oil in its fields is capital intensive and technically complex to extract.
But decades of decades of mismanagement, underinvestment in oil upgrading infrastructure and international sanctions have limited the oil sector's viability.
US forces seize another Venezuela-linked tanker in the Caribbean
Meanwhile, US military forces boarded and took control of a seventh oil tanker connected with Venezuela on Tuesday.
US Southern Command said in a social media post that forces apprehended the tanker Sagitta "without incident."
"It was operating in defiance of President Trump's established quarantine of sanctioned vessels in the Caribbean," it said.
It is the seventh such apprehension since the start of President Donald Trump's campaign to control Venezuela's oil flows.
