Author: La Tabla/Platform for Data Journalism 2AUG 2025
Ronald Oribio Quintana, one of the prisoners exchanged between Venezuela and the United States on July 18, is the head of POES International LTD. This company received oil shipments as payment for maintenance and recovery work carried out by businessman Bernardo Arosio at Petro San Félix (PDVSA) from 2021 to 2023, during the tenure of then Oil Minister Tareck El Aissami.
The operational connection was documented through testimonies from PDVSA workers and corporate records. Arosio, the main contractor with no prior oil experience, personally supervised critical facility operations while POES International LTD – a company registered in the United Kingdom under the category of “business support services” – acted as the legal receiver of oil tankers assigned by PDVSA. This crude-for-services barter mechanism was designed to evade international financial sanctions.
Ronald Oribio, a petroleum engineer with experience at Halliburton and BP, had led POES since 2014. Despite being listed as “financially inactive” in British records, the company operated in Venezuela with offices in Caracas and Lecherías. His technical profile contrasted with his role in oil transactions: sector experts pointed out that POES specialized in reserve analysis, not in crude trading.
The scheme collapsed in 2023 when Arosio was detained in the major anti-corruption case involving PDVSA. Documents seized from the Torre BOD (Caracas) revealed that POES shared offices with Prodata Energy, Arosio’s firm for exporting gas to Colombia. Oribio, who lived in Baltimore (USA), was arrested in Caracas on January 7, 2025, along with his brother Erick during a holiday visit, being released six months later in the bilateral exchange.
PDVSA has not issued any statements regarding the contracts. The Ministry of Oil, under new leadership since 2024, is conducting an ongoing investigation into losses amounting to 13.338 billion dollars during El Aissami’s period.
Thread published by @latablablog in April 2023