Feb. 3 at 7:42 PM
PickAlpha Midday-
U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control issued General License 46 (Jan 29) allowing “established U.S. entities” to lift/export/sell/transport/refine Venezuela-origin oil, with monetary payments routed into the Foreign Government Deposit Funds framework. 
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the Venezuela oil fund is currently held in a short-term account in Qatar (~
$200M) before moving to a blocked Treasury account. 
Crucially, GL46 still does not authorize upstream exploration/drilling/production absent a specific OFAC license. 
Tickers:
$CL=F
$VLO $XLE
Our view is this is bullish refiners / bearish heavy-sour differentials, not a “flood of new barrels” yet. The real crude catalyst is an upstream license: if OFAC opens drilling/production, WTI starts pricing a 2H supply add; if not, this stays mostly a reroute-from-Asia-to-US-Gulf story with limited headline impact on flat price.
