{"id":646,"date":"2026-02-11T13:45:29","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T13:45:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/646\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T13:45:29","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T13:45:29","slug":"vitol-and-trafigura-secure-u-s-licenses-to-trade-venezuelan-oil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/646\/","title":{"rendered":"Vitol and Trafigura Secure U.S. Licenses to Trade Venezuelan Oil"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

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

Trafigura operates in full compliance with applicable sanctions and holds all necessary licenses to perform these transactions, the trader added.<\/p>\n

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

While the big U.S. oil companies are reluctant to commit billions of dollars of investments to restore Venezuela\u2019s oil industry, with Exxon\u2019s CEO Darren Woods saying Venezuela is currently \u201cuninvestable\u201d<\/a>, the world\u2019s biggest traders jumped at the opportunity to help trade Venezuelan oil.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

At the White House meeting, Trafigura\u2019s CEO Richard Holtum told<\/a> President Trump that the commodity trading group is working \u201cto bring that Venezuelan oil to the United States,\u201d adding that the first vessel \u201cshould load in the next week.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Vitol and Trafigura are now in talks with Chinese and Indian refiners to sell cargoes of Venezuelan crude for delivery in March, according to Reuters\u2019 sources.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Vitol, the world\u2019s biggest independent oil trader, has approached Indian state-controlled refiners to offer the crude at a discount of $8-$8.50 per barrel versus ICE Brent<\/a> on a delivered basis, one of the sources told Reuters.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Vitol and Trafigura have also contacted PetroChina about potential interest in Venezuela\u2019s flagship heavy sour crude Merey, 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<\/p>\n

Last week, the global head of Trafigura\u2019s oil division, Ben Luckock, told Bloomberg<\/a> that \u201cI think everyone is looking at what opportunities there may be in Venezuela.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The prospect of imminent unfreezing of Venezuela\u2019s oil flows offset early on Monday the rising geopolitical risk premium from the protests in Iran<\/a> and rhetoric from the U.S. and Iran on the escalating protests and regime violence against protesters.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Vitol and Trafigura are offering Venezuelan crude to refiners in China and India for March delivery, trade sources…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":647,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[125],"tags":[351,895,465,191,463,896,196,897,592,158],"class_list":["post-646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-vitol","tag-china","tag-crude-oil","tag-ice-brent","tag-india","tag-merey-crude","tag-oil-traders","tag-trafigura","tag-u-s-sanctions","tag-venezuelan-oil","tag-vitol"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646","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=646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}