{"id":386,"date":"2026-02-11T11:10:25","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T11:10:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/386\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T11:10:25","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T11:10:25","slug":"global-traders-launch-legal-venezuelan-oil-sales-to-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/386\/","title":{"rendered":"Global Traders Launch Legal Venezuelan Oil Sales to China"},"content":{"rendered":"

Vitol, the world\u2019s biggest independent oil trading group, is offering Venezuelan crude to Chinese refiners at a discount that\u2019s three times narrower compared to the illicit sales from Venezuela before the ousting of Nicolas Maduro, anonymous traders with knowledge of the development told Bloomberg<\/a> on Monday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Vitol has recently offered cargoes of Venezuela\u2019s flagship Merey heavy sour crude grade to China at a discount of $5 per barrel to ICE Brent<\/a>, according to Bloomberg\u2019s sources.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

This compares with a discount as wide as $15 a barrel to ICE Brent on a delivered basis before the U.S. blitz in Venezuela and the capture of Maduro. Back then, China was the most important buyer of Venezuelan crude in exports that were under sanctions by the U.S. and were carried out by a shadow fleet of tankers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

China is expected to see a plunge in imports<\/a> of oil from Venezuela in February as the month-long U.S. blockade has prevented many China-bound cargoes from leaving Venezuelan waters.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The deliveries of crude and fuel oil from Venezuela to China are estimated at just 166,000 barrels per day in February, compared to an average of 642,000 bpd in 2025.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Vitol and Trafigura are offering Venezuelan crude to refiners in China and India for March delivery, trade sources told\u00a0Reuters<\/a>\u00a0last week, days after two of the world\u2019s biggest independent oil traders obtained special U.S. licenses to help market Venezuela\u2019s oil.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

At the request of the U.S. government, Trafigura and Vitol are providing logistical and marketing services to facilitate the sale of Venezuelan oil, Trafigura\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0on January 9, following a meeting of oil industry executives with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Vitol and Trafigura have also reportedly contacted PetroChina about potential interest in Venezuela\u2019s Merey crude, which was a staple with the Chinese state oil giant before the U.S. sanctioned Venezuela\u2019s exports during President Trump\u2019s first term in office.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Vitol, the world\u2019s biggest independent oil trading group, is offering Venezuelan crude to Chinese refiners at a discount…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":387,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[125],"tags":[464,465,463,469,466,468,196,467,462,158],"class_list":["post-386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-vitol","tag-china-oil-imports","tag-ice-brent","tag-merey-crude","tag-oil-exports","tag-oil-trading","tag-petrochina","tag-trafigura","tag-us-sanctions-venezuela","tag-venezuelan-crude","tag-vitol"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}