HOUSTON, April 6 (Reuters) – Venezuela’s PDVSA will discharge within the coming days its first cargo of U.S. crude purchased from British BP, who together with China Oil was awarded a young to provide the state-run firm with some 8 million barrels within the second quarter, merchants near the deal informed Reuters on Wednesday.

PDVSA, who’s dealing with delays to load and discharge tankers at its primary crude port, Jose, will obtain the cargo on the neighboring island of Curacao the place it operates a storage facility, in response to Thomson Reuters vessel monitoring information.

The variety of tankers ready to load and discharge at PDVSA’s Bullenbay terminal in Curacao has fallen in current days, the info say, however it has not eased round Jose.

The tanker Krymst was loaded with 500,000 barrels of West Texas Intermediate crude on the U.S. Gulf Coast on March 28. It will arrive in Curacao on Wednesday.

China Oil, a unit of state-run China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), should ship 2.7 million barrels of WTI crude in April, whereas BP should present 2.7 million barrels of WTI in April and a pair of.7 million barrels of Nigeria’s Qua Iboe crude in May-June, acording to the tender’s outcomes.

The tender, together with one other spot buy of crude from PetroChina, will double PDVSA’s crude imports through the second quarter to some 95,000 barrels per day (bpd) that might be used for refining and in addition to dilute Venezuela’s additional heavy oil output.

PDVSA, who began importing U.S. oil in January, can also be about to discharge one other U.S. crude cargo on tanker Ridgebury Sally B, which was loaded on March 28. Seller of this cargo remains to be unknown.

WAIT TIME

Even although ready occasions at Bullenbay have fallen permitting a much bigger variety of tankers to enter the terminal in current days, the buildup of vessels round Jose has not considerably decreased, in response to Thomson Reuters information.

Some 18 vessels have been ready to load crude or discharge diluents at Jose as of April 6, the info say, together with a dozen tankers for exports and three for imports.

The delays prompted a 7 % decline in Venezuelan crude exports to the United States final month.

The tanker Orpheas, carrying 500,000 barrels of WTI purchased by PDVSA from French Total, discharged on April 4 after a 13-day wait.

Wait occasions to load Suezmaxes and really giant crude carriers (VLCC) are round 9 days.

(Reporting by Marianna Parraga, with further reporting by Liz Hampton; Editing by Meredith Mazzilli)

(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2016.