If it is still too early to say what the gatekeepers are for full resumption of Venezuela’s oil exports following President Donald Trump’s election defeat in his bid for a second term of office, Caracas returned to do oil business with his key one-time key customers. , Chinese provincial companies China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) and Petro-China, are unquestionably pointing to a dark silver lining in a dark cloud that had long settled over the country’s economy.
Last week it was revealed that the state-run Venezuelan oil company PDVSA had resumed supplying oil to China through normal channels rather than the covert mode of operation since about August 2019 when US pressure forced on ships to stop loading raw and fuel in Venezuelan. ports.
A Reuters report on November 27 noted that Venezuela has resumed direct oil transportation to China despite the fact that US sanctions remain in force. Until now, the imposition of sanctions had forced Venezuelan oil supplies to China to be moved through covert seas arrangements, which included boosting the transportation of oil to Malaysia to facilitate cargo transfer between shipping at sea to allow Venezuelan crude to continue to flow to China. after changing hands and using trade intermediaries.
Trump’s defeat in the November polls has not stopped an administration now in the evening of his day from issuing threats against criminals from his sanctions. Last week a report noted that a US Treasury spokesman said that “those who engage in activity in the Venezuelan oil sector, risk exposing sanctions.” A Reuters report named the first tanker to resume shipping of Venezuelan crude directly to China as the “Kyoto” and said it was identified by a shipping monitoring service, TankerTrackers.com, when loading 1.8 million barrels of heavy raw at the end of Jose Venezuela’s port August. Other tankers are said to be in the process of discharging crude at Chinese ports. Some of these oil deliveries to China are said to be made through procedures known as ‘dark cruises’, arrangements for which include disabling temporary location transponders.
Efforts by the Trump administration to remove the Maduro administration from its job by choking the country’s oil exports have reportedly been undermined by the emergence of several Russian companies as customers of Venezuelan oil company PDVSA in recent months. Reuters says the emergence of these companies has allowed PDVSA to continue to ship oil to Asian destinations despite established customers withdrawing.
The direct shipment comes ahead of the January transfer of power in the United States from Republican President Donald Trump to Democratic President-elect Joe Biden, whose advisers have said it would keep sanctions but shift the focus of the US strategy .