(Reuters) – A U.S. court auction of 100,000 barrels of gasoline that a shipping company suspected was destined for fuel-starved Venezuela received no bids, according to a late Wednesday filing, raising doubts about the fate of the cargo.
Marshall Islands-based Brujo Finance Company feared the South American country was the true destination of an April fuel delivery to Aruba it was hired to conduct on behalf of Wilmer Ruperti, a Venezuelan shipping magnate who is close to the socialist government in Caracas, which is under U.S. sanctions.
The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas conducted the auction on Wednesday to raise funds for the damages sought by Brujo for the fees its vessel, the Alkimos, had incurred while waiting. The vessel is currently anchored off the U.S. Gulf Coast, Refinitiv Eikon data showed.
Five bidders participated in the auction, but none of them were willing to place an offer at the minimum bid level of $2.5 million for the cargo, according to the filing.
Lawyers representing Brujo and ES Euroshipping, the Ruperti company, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the case’s next steps. Euroshipping previously accused Brujo of “theft” for refusing to deliver the cargo, and said the shipment did not run a risk of violating U.S. sanctions.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s government blames U.S. sanctions for the once-prosperous OPEC nation’s chronic fuel shortages, and recently received shipments of gasoline from ally Iran to alleviate the scarcity. Washington is seeking to oust Maduro, who stands accused of rigging his 2018 re-election.
Maduro’s critics argue that the true cause of the shortages lies in years of underinvestment and lack of maintenance at the country’s 1.3 million barrel-per-day refining network, which is almost entirely halted.
(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Bernadette Baum)
