Reuters, citing its sources, reports that the Venezuelan oil company PDVSA plans to expand the use of USDT as the main means of payment for export supplies of crude oil and fuel oil.

The process of transitioning to the USDT stablecoin began in 2023 and is aimed at minimizing the risk of freezing state-owned company income from the sale of crude oil in foreign bank accounts. By the end of the first quarter of 2024, the company had already converted most of its oil spot trades without a swap to a contract requiring upfront payment in US dollars.

In addition, PDVSA asks its clients wishing to conduct oil transactions to store virtual assets in a digital wallet. At the moment, settlements in USDT are not fully settled. Therefore, the company, like its trading partners, works with an intermediary structure.

In the fall of 2023, US authorities agreed to ease sanctions against Venezuela in connection with an election agreement between the local government and the opposition. But after President Nicolás Maduro blocked an opposition candidate from taking power, the US Treasury Department ordered PDVSA's customers and suppliers to curtail trading operations by May 31, 2024.

Earlier, the president of the Venezuelan crypto business association Cavemcrip, Enrique de los Reyes, said that from the first quarter of 2024, the country began to prepare for the lifting of restrictions on transactions with digital currencies.