{"id":99836,"date":"2026-07-08T13:45:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T13:45:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/99836\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T13:45:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T13:45:10","slug":"vitol-eyes-venezuela-expansion-as-oil-industry-returns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/99836\/","title":{"rendered":"Vitol Eyes Venezuela Expansion as Oil Industry Returns"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"speakable\">Commodity trading major Vitol is planning to establish a presence in Venezuela amid a surge in interest in the country\u2019s oil wealth from the resources industry, Reuters has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/business\/energy\/exclusive-vitol-moves-expand-open-office-venezuela-sources-say-2026-07-08\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">reported<\/a>, citing unnamed sources.<\/p>\n<p>Vitol is already exporting Venezuelan crude, following the deal that Caracas struck with the United States after the latter ousted the country\u2019s president, Nicolas Maduro, in January and took him to the U.S. to stand trial for drug trafficking.<\/p>\n<p>Soon after that happened, Vitol and Trafigura struck a deal with the White House to sell 50 million barrels if Venezuelan crude, valued at some $2 billion. Later, the total to be sold by the two commodity majors was hiked twofold, to 100 million barrels.<\/p>\n<p>According to media <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/business\/energy\/exclusive-vitol-moves-expand-open-office-venezuela-sources-say-2026-07-08\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">reports<\/a> from the time, the biggest target buyers for the Venezuelan oil were Chinese and Indian refiners, with at least some of the oil offered at a substantial discount to Brent crude at the time.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor many years Vitol has had a strong relationship with PDVSA,\u201d Vitol&#8217;s head of Latin America, Henry Medina, told Reuters. \u201cWe look forward to building on this and developing additional partnerships in Venezuela, as well as a meaningful presence in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Venezuela exported an estimated 1.25 million bpd in May, with the United States, India, and Europe emerging as major buyers. Production and exports are seen rising further from this level\u2014which was the highest since 2019 for exports\u2014as energy investors return to the South American country.<\/p>\n<p>The return of international oil firms to Venezuela lays the foundations for a rebound in the country\u2019s oil supply, although it is still a third of the peak level of 3 million barrels per day from more than a decade ago. Demand trends, however, are conducive to production expansion, especially with Middle Eastern supply still disrupted.<\/p>\n<p>By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com<\/p>\n<p>More Top Reads From Oilprice.com<a href=\"https:\/\/oilprice.com\/Latest-Energy-News\/World-News\/The-Iran-War-Has-Upended-Global-LNG-Markets.html\" data-embargo=\"1774512000\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Commodity trading major Vitol is planning to establish a presence in Venezuela amid a surge in interest in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":99837,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[125],"tags":[351,2127,895,49375,191,469,797,512,194,158],"class_list":["post-99836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-vitol","tag-china","tag-commodity-trading","tag-crude-oil","tag-energy-investment","tag-india","tag-oil-exports","tag-oil-markets","tag-pdvsa","tag-venezuela","tag-vitol"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116884663650963106","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99836","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=99836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99836\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}