The confrontation between Venezuela's government and workers at one of the world's largest oil companies is beginning to affect exports of crude oil and refined products.
Two of Venezuela's five major loading terminals closed yesterday, stranding a dozen ships waiting to load cargo, officials within Venezuela's oil industry and at Petroleos de Venezuela SA told Dow Jones Newswires.
They included the El Palito terminal, which serves the domestic market, and Puerto La Cruz, which ships approximately 12 per cent of Venezuelan exports.
One of Venezuela's largest oil complexes, the 950,000-barrels per day Paraguana refinery in western Venezuela, operated normally. But the 130,000-barrel El Palito refinery closed to protest at the government's suspension of the plant's manager.
A clash between government supporters and opposition party members at a drilling site in the eastern state of Monagas on Thursday left two oil workers dead and three injured.
In the capital Caracas, police stood outside PDVSA headquarters to keep the company's protesters and pro-government demonstrators apart.
Petroleos de Venezuela staff are protesting at President Hugo Chavez's appointment of five board members to the company's seven-member board, claiming the appointments were political.
"Potentially, this is a bigger threat for the US market than disruptions in the Middle East, which are hypothetical. This isn't hypothetical," said John Lichtblau, chairman of the non-profit Petroleum Industry Research Foundation in New York.
PA