Venezuelan Vice President and Oil Minister Tareck El Aissami tweeted late on Monday: “We keep moving forward and winning.” He was referring to the docking of the tanker Fortune a short time earlier at the country’s El Palito refinery, about 100 miles west of the capital Caracas, following a voyage from Iran with what energy analysts estimated was about 11 million gallons of gasoline. Another four tankers are still on their way from the Islamic Republic. Although Venezuela’s proven oil reserves are the largest in the world – placing it ahead of even Saudi Arabia – its economy, which relies heavily on petroleum exports, has fallen apart due to plunging oil prices, mismanagement and severe social upheaval, leaving the country’s cars without fuel and parked on streets and in driveways. One energy analyst told the Associated Press news agency that the gasoline arriving aboard the five tankers would cover the country’s needs for just three weeks. The Trump Administration warned that it would not sit idly by over the transfers between the world two biggest pariah states. Iranian television reports, however, showed the Fortune sailing toward the refinery in Caribbean waters under the protection of fighter jets, the footage having been provided by the Venezuelan military.
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