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(Bloomberg) — The US is set to import the most Venezuelan oil in a year after President Donald Trump’s administration moved to control the country’s energy supply.
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A fleet of 18 ships loaded crude oil bound for refineries in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi this month, the most since December 2024, according to shipping reports and vessel movements compiled by Bloomberg. Combined crude deliveries to America will reach about 275,000 barrels a day, more than doubling volumes seen in the previous month.
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As the US emerges as the biggest recipient of Venezuelan oil following former President Nicolás Maduro’s capture, shipments to China — which averaged 400,000 barrels a day last year — fell to zero in January amid a US naval crackdown on the so-called dark fleet of vessels used to transport sanctioned oil to China.
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Deliveries of sludgy, sulfurous Venezuelan oil to the US are set to continue rising after the Trump administration eased some sanctions, allowing US refiners to buy directly from state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela SA. Valero Energy Corp., the largest US buyer of Venezuelan crude, said it plans to ramp up purchases, even before the Trump administration announced Thursday that it was expanding oil companies’ ability to operate in the South American country.
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Most of the oil arriving in the US comes from Chevron Corp., which holds a US license to sell sanctioned Venezuelan crude. About 20% is being supplied by commodity traders Trafigura Group and Vitol Group, which were tapped by the Trump administration to help sell up to 50 million barrels of oil after Maduro’s ouster in early January.
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Vitol and Trafigura are on course to lift 14 million barrels of Venezuelan crude, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Much of that supply was on ships that were initially bound for China and were loaded before January. The traders have place around 9 million barrels of that oil in Caribbean storage tanks, while the rest is going to the US and Europe.
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Click here for link to document with ship loadings and destinations.
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The US could potentially boost oil imports from Venezuela to 700,000 barrels a day, Jefferies analysts led by Lloyd Byrne wrote in a Jan. 25 note. That’s far from a peak of 1.2 million barrels reached in the 2008-2011 period, a level that would be difficult to reach again given the shutdown of refineries including LyondellBasell Industries NV’s Houston facility, once a regular buyer of Venezuelan oil.
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