The US plans to impose "very significant additional sanctions" against Venezuela and target more international banks helping the Maduro regime, a top State Department official said Tuesday.
The Trump administration ratcheted up pressure on Venezuela this week, including calling on India to stop importing oil from the country and sanctioning a Moscow-based bank behind the failed "petro" cryptocurrency.
These additional steps could impact oil flows further, after sanctions imposed in January against state-owned PDVSA blocked US diluent exports to Venezuela and created a defacto ban on US imports of Venezuelan crude.
Venezuela's output sank to 1.09 million b/d in February, down 130,000 b/d from January, the Energy Information Administration said Tuesday.
S&P Global Platts Analytics expects Venezuelan oil production to fall to 825,000 b/d in the fourth quarter and average 750,000 b/d in 2020.
"You will see in the coming days some very significant additional sanctions," Special Representative for Venezuela Elliott Abrams said during a State Department briefing in Washington.
Asked if the coming sanctions would target banks or governments, Abrams pointed to the Treasury Department's action on Monday against Evrofinance Mosnarbank.
Treasury accused the bank, owned jointly by Russian and Venezuelan state-owned companies, of propping up PDVSA and attempting to use the petro currency to circumvent US sanctions.
"There will be more sanctions of financial institutions - I think I would leave it at that - and more visa revocations coming," Abrams said.
