Traders rebrand Venezuelan oil for China as Brazilian, sources and tanker trackers say

Chen Aizhu

Sun, May 11, 2025, 9:08 PM 4 min read

By Chen Aizhu

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Traders person rebranded much than $1 cardinal of Venezuelan lipid shipments to China arsenic Brazilian crude implicit the past year, according to 2 tanker tracking firms, institution documents and 4 traders, helping buyers to chopped logistics costs and circumvent U.S. sanctions.

Independent refiners successful China are the main buyers of seaborne lipid shipments from countries sanctioned by the United States, with offshore Malaysia serving arsenic a cardinal trans-shipment hub for Venezuelan and Iranian crude.

Since July 2024, however, traders person besides rebranded Venezuelan lipid arsenic from Brazil. This has enabled tankers to sail straight from Venezuela to China, skipping the stop-over successful waters disconnected Malaysia and shortening the voyage by astir 4 days.

Washington has imposed sanctions connected Venezuelan vigor exports since 2019 to trim the lipid export gross that funds the authorities of President Nicolas Maduro, who has held powerfulness for much than a decennary with elections that observers accidental were fraudulent.

Maduro and his authorities person rejected sanctions by the United States and others, saying they are illegitimate measures that magnitude to "economic war" and are designed to cripple Venezuela.

Since sanctions person been successful place, lipid traders person transferred lipid from 1 vessel to different astatine oversea to disguise the root of Venezuelan crude earlier it is shipped to China, which is the world's biggest crude importer.

More recently, shippers person tampered with the tankers' determination awesome to marque it look similar vessels are departing from Brazilian ports erstwhile they are really sailing from Venezuela, according to maritime data, outer imagery and shoreside photos compiled and analysed by monitoring work TankerTrackers.com. This signifier is known arsenic spoofing.

According to Chinese customs data, China imported astir 2.7 cardinal metric tons, oregon 67,000 barrels per time (bpd), of mixed bitumen from Brazil betwixt July 2024 and March 2025, worthy $1.2 billion.

Chinese refiners regularly bargain Brazilian crude but Brazil seldom exports immoderate bitumen blend, according to authorities lipid institution Petrobras. Brazilian customs information records nary export of bitumen blend to China since astatine slightest 2023.

Mixed bitumen, oregon bitumen blend, is simply a tar-like residue for processing into asphalt. However, Brazil's emblematic crude grades for export are classified arsenic medium-sweet lipid from its prolific offshore fields known arsenic pre-salt.

"What we export to China is chiefly crude lipid from the pre-salt, it's not bitumen," Petrobras CEO Magda Chambriard told reporters connected the sidelines of a league successful Houston past week.