OREANDA-NEWS. US President Barack Obama today issued an executive order that implements and expands sanctions on senior Venezuelan officials for alleged human rights violations.

The new order widens the scope of the Venezuela defense of human rights and civil society act which Obama signed in December 2014.

Today?s measure declares "a national emergency with respect to the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States posed by the situation in Venezuela."

The sanctions include US visa bans and a freeze or seizure of assets in the US.

Seven senior officials have been added to the list, including security, intelligence and armed forces officials as well as Justo Jos? Noguera Pietri, head of state-owned basic industries giant CVG and former general commander of Venezuela's Bolivarian National Guard (GNB), and prosecutor Katherine Nayarith Haringhton Padron.

The White House is discussing a full list with the State Department and relevant congressional committees.

The Venezuelan foreign ministry declined to comment. Caracas regularly blames Washington for waging an "economic war" on Venezuela.

Venezuela?s oil-based economy is expected to shrink by 7pc in 2015, with inflation of more than 100pc and chronic shortages of basic goods. State-owned PdV continues to ship crude oil to the US and regularly imports US refined products and blendstocks.

The new sanctions come on the heels of a legal setback for Caracas. A New York court on 4 March denied the government?s petition to reduce interest compounding on \$1.6bn it was ordered to pay ExxonMobil in October 2014 by a three-member arbitration panel at the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (Icsid) in Washington.

Venezuela plans to appeal the ruling.

The arbitration award stems from Venezuela?s 2007 takeover of ExxonMobil?s 41.67pc stake in the 120,000 b/d Cerro Negro extra-heavy crude upgrader and its 25pc stake in the 15,000 b/d Quiamare-La Ceiba upstream project.

The NY district court's decision was "disappointing but not entirely unexpected considering the present circumstances in which the US government is trying to destabilize Venezuela's Bolivarian government and ExxonMobil has started drilling illegally in the Essequibo region that historically belongs to Venezuela," an energy ministry official said, referring to the US major?s recent start-up of drilling offshore Guyana in an area that Venezuela has long claimed as its own.

ExxonMobil was also awarded over \$908mn in December 2011 by an arbitration panel of the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris, boosting the total compensation Caracas has been ordered to pay the US firm to over \$2.5bn.

Venezuela's government maintains it only has to pay ExxonMobil about \$200mn of the ICC award after subtracting unspecified debt and fiscal liabilities.

Venezuela's government has never denied that it must pay ExxonMobil some compensation for its expropriated assets, but argues that the ICC panel's \$908mn award of December 2011 must be subtracted from the Icsid's \$1.6bn award "so that further adjustments can be made from a ceiling of about \$600mn to arrive at a final lower figure," the ministry official said.