Reliance to load Venezuelan oil cargo under fuel swap deal?

News Network
July 10, 2020

London, Jul 10: India's Reliance will load its first cargo of Venezuelan crude in three months this week in exchange for diesel under a swap deal the parties say is permitted under the US sanctions regime on the Latin American country, according to a Reliance source and a shipping document from state oil firm PDVSA.

Washington has exempted some Venezuelan oil trade from sanctions when transactions are in exchange for fuel and food or to repay debts rather than for cash. But that trade slowed as the US tightened restrictions and refiners, shippers and insurers have been steering clear of Venezuela to avoid any risk they may fall foul of sanctions.

Washington aims to deprive Venezuelan socialist President Nicolas Maduro of his main source of revenue with the sanctions, which have driven Venezuelan oil exports to their lowest level since the 1940s.

Reliance gave the US State Department and the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) notice of the diesel swap and received word back that the policies that allowed the transaction were still in place, the Reliance source told Reuters.

Reliance has previously said that its supplies of fuel to PDVSA in exchange for crude were permitted under sanctions.

An oil tanker named Commodore would load the cargo of crude in Venezuela and ship it to India, the tanker's manager NGM Energy said.

"All details of the transaction and transportation were shared with US authorities, who confirmed that the U.S. policy authorizing such transactions remained in place," NGM Energy said in a statement to Reuters.

"The shipment is made in connection with the humanitarian exchange of oil for diesel fuel."

The Commodore is loading a 1.9-million barrel cargo of crude for Reliance at Venezuela's main oil port of Jose, according to an internal PDVSA cargo schedule seen by Reuters.

The Liberian-flagged Commodore was at the Jose Terminal on Thursday, ship tracking data on Refinitiv Eikon showed.

The US State Department, Treasury's enforcement arm OFAC, and PDVSA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Reliance has a swap deal to provide diesel to Venezuela in exchange for fuel but has not received a cargo of crude since April. Sources at Indian refiners told Reuters earlier this year they planned to wind down their purchases of Venezuelan oil to avoid any problems with supply due to sanctions.

Other long-time customers of PDVSA, including Italy's Eni and Spain's Repsol, have continued taking cargoes of Venezuelan crude this year under permission granted by the US Treasury Department to exchange the oil for diesel supply as part of debt repayment deals, according to sources from the companies.

NGM Energy also manages the Voyager I tanker, which the United States removed from its list of sanctioned vessels last week after NGM and the ship's owner Sanibel Shiptrade said they would increase measures to ensure vessels complied with international sanctions.

"Last month, NGM Energy SA adopted a firm policy of not allowing vessels under its commercial management to trade to Venezuela, or to carry Venezuelan petroleum cargoes, absent US government authorization," NGM said.

"NGM continues to stand by that pledge."

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News Network
January 18,2020

New Delhi, Jan 18: Lieutenant Governor (LG) Anil Baijal has granted the power of detaining authority to the Delhi Police Commissioner under the National Security Act (NSA), according to a notification. The NSA allows preventive detention of an individual for months if the authorities feel that the individual is a threat to the national security, and law and order, sources said.

In exercise of the powers conferred by sub-section (3) of section 3, read with clause (c) of Section 2 of the National Security Act, 1980, the Lt Governor is pleased to direct that during the period January 19 to April 18, the Delhi Police Commissioner may also exercise the powers of detaining authority under sub-section (2) of the section 3 of the aforesaid Act, the notification stated.

The notification has been issued on January 10 following the approval of the LG.

It comes at a time when the national capital has been witnessing a number of protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC).

However, the Delhi Police said it is a routine order that has been issued in every quarter and has nothing to do with the current situation.

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News Network
May 27,2020

Mumbai, May 27: The Maharashtra government on Tuesday ordered re investigation by the CID into the suicide of a 53-year-old interior designer and his mother, allegedly over non-payment of dues by TV journalist Arnab Goswami and two others.

State Home Minister Anil Deshmukh said he ordered re investigation after Adnya Naik, daughter of interior designer Anvay Naik, claimed that Alibag Police in neighbouring Raigad district did not probe the non-payment of dues which had driven her father and grandmother to suicide.

"Adnya Naik had complained to me that #AlibaugPolice had not investigated non-payment of dues from #ArnabGoswami's @republic which drove her entrepreneur father & grandmom to suicide in May 2018," Deshmukh tweeted.

"I've ordered a CID re-investigation of the case," the minister, an NCP leader, added.

He also used the hashtag "Maharashtra government cares" while sharing the tweet. Earlier this month, the police registered an abetment of suicide case against Republic TV editor-in-chief Goswami and two others.

The suicide note purportedly written by Anvay Naik, managing director of Concorde Designs Private Limited, said he was forced to take his life as he was not paid dues of Rs 5.40 crore by the three accused.

Republic TV denied the allegation and said that certain vested interest groups were running "a false and malicious campaign and making false statements and innuendos against the company by exploiting the tragic event".

Mumbai Police are also conducting a probe against Goswami over his statements about the Palghar lynching case of April this year.

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News Network
March 11,2020

New Delhi, Mar 11: Jyotiraditya Scindia, the Madhya Pradesh politician whose surprise exit from the Congress has brought the Kamal Nath government to the brink of collapse, joined the Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday. Scindia joined the BJP at an event in national capital Delhi in the presence of party chief JP Nadda.

Scindia, who was warmly welcomed by Nadda, described 10 March, the day that he exited from the Congress as one of the two life-changing days of his life. The first, he said, was 30 September 2001 when he lost his father. Scindia underscored that the Congress was not the party that it had been and had been living in denial.

Scindia had ended his 18-year-old association with the Congress on Tuesday after meetings with Home Minister Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Scindia’s exit from the Congress was followed by resignation letters by about 22 MLAs who had been sequestered in Karnataka. The resignation letters were, however, sent to the Governor and not the assembly speaker, and threatens to upend the Kamal Nath government which has a wafer-thin majority.

If the resignations are accepted, the effective strength of the MP assembly will come down to 206, leaving the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with a slender majority beyond the halfway mark of 103 with its 107 MLAs. For now, the Congress is trying to persuade the MLAs to not pull down the state government.

In his resignation letter to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi that Scindia put out on Twitter soon after, he alluded to his discomfort in the party over the last year or so. “...as you well know, this is a path that has been drawing itself out over the last year,” he had written in his letter.

It was seen as a reference to the Congress settling for Kamal Nath as the chief minister after the 2018 state elections though it was Scindia who had led from the front to oust the BJP from Madhya Pradesh. Scindia’s supporters had hoped that the Congress would tell Kamal Nath to give up his second charge - as the party chief in the state - but this also didn’t happen.

The first hint that something was amiss came in November last year when Scindia removed a reference to the Congress in his Twitter bio and instead wrote “public servant and cricket enthusiast”. He had then explained the change to an effort to make the Twitter bio shorter.

Jyotyiraditya Scindia’s aunt Yashodhara Raje Scindia appeared to declare soon after that the 49-year-old would join the BJP when she welcomed his resignation, calling it “ghar wapsi” or homecoming. “Jyotiraditya was being neglected in Congress,” Yashodhara Raje Scindia said.

Scindia’s grandmother, Vijaya Raje Scindia, was one of the founders of the Jana Sangh, the precursor to the BJP. His aunt Vasundhara Raje is a former Union minister and ex-chief minister of Rajasthan and another aunt Yashodhara Raje is a former minister in the Madhya Pradesh cabinet.

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