Venezuela’s PDVSA and international trading company Trafigura are in discussions to swap over 10 percent of the South American country’s crude output for imported fuels for domestic use, according to draft documents viewed by Reuters on Wednesday. The talks come amid PDVSA’s limited access to credit due to U.S. sanctions that have disrupted its oil purchases and bank guarantees for crude deliveries, making the country more dependent on barter deals. Venezuela’s sharp crude output decline and the poor state of its refineries have turned the once fuel self-sufficient country into a growing importer. The OPEC member faces the world’s steepest inflation, a fourth year of economic recession, a severe scarcity of food and medicine, and mounting pressure to restructure $60 billion in debt. If signed, the proposed three-year agreements would mark a major shift at PDVSA, which traditionally avoided long-term supply contracts with trading firms because […]