How U.S. takes action on Venezuelan oil tankers is key, says RBC's Croft

Brian Sullivan (Anchor) 00:00.070

so how does all of this ultimately though play out lima croft is MD and head of global commodity strategy at RBC capital markets halima the keyword here sanction right this is not all oil coming venezuela it's not from venezuela it's not a complete blockade of all of maduros oil

Brian Sullivan (Anchor) 00:17.830

so how much do we think it is and what kind of damage might it do well it's

Helima Croft (Managing Director and Head of Global Commodity Strategy) 00:23.150

certainly not the two hundred and fifty thousand barrels a day that chevron exports from venezuela so we're talking about the remainder are we talking about five to six hundred thousand barrels potentially but the key thing is brian we have seized one tanker what type of forces

Helima Croft (Managing Director and Head of Global Commodity Strategy) 00:40.870

are we going to deploy to go after the rest of these sanctioned cargo so i think that is going to be the question how serious is president trump about backing words with action with his latest threats against the maduro regime what does

? (Anchor) 00:54.550

it mean for china which i understand was the recipient of these barrels lima well

Helima Croft (Managing Director and Head of Global Commodity Strategy) 00:59.070

the question for china is do they really need these venezuelan barrels at the moment i mean china has become the shelter of last resort for everybody sanctioned barrels the russians put their sanctioned barrels into the chinese teapot refiners iranian barrels are showing up in

Helima Croft (Managing Director and Head of Global Commodity Strategy) 01:15.230

the chinese teapot refiners so how big a hit to china is this move again it's one tanker so far it's going to be a big question is is president trump very serious about really trying to shut down the sanctions venezuelan oil trade doing

Brian Sullivan (Anchor) 01:31.590

a hundred three million barrels of oil a day produced around the world roughly we're talking about maybe five to seven hundred thousand barrels of oil a day from this which would effectively be one ship so on that basis it's not very much but it's a lot of money for nicolas

Brian Sullivan (Anchor) 01:47.790

maduro i've got to imagine so what is the thinking about what kind of damage could this actually force maduro to voluntarily leave his own country and go into exile somewhere i imagine he wants he wants to be safe wherever he may he wants

Helima Croft (Managing Director and Head of Global Commodity Strategy) 02:02.510

to be free from prosecution he does not want to end up like the situation we saw with chilean leader pinochet who basically was arrested in london and so the question is where can nicolas maduro go some were saying maybe you would go to qatar the qataris have been very involved

Helima Croft (Managing Director and Head of Global Commodity Strategy) 02:18.230

in negotiations trying to have an off ramp at this situation the question is is maduro leave voluntarily if he does not are we going in to get him you mentioned iraq i don't think president trump wants to put significant US boots on the ground in venezuela so the question is if

Helima Croft (Managing Director and Head of Global Commodity Strategy) 02:35.710

he doesn't leave are we going to do some type of airstrikes are we going to send in a team to capture him and arrest him is it like a bin laden style situation for maduro so we don't know how this ends and then the question is if we do get a new regime how stable is that

Helima Croft (Managing Director and Head of Global Commodity Strategy) 02:53.470

government does the venezuelan military try to block the rise of the US friendly regime unclear what the end game is going to look like