Supertankers sailing to pick up Venezuelan oil for China make U-turns, ship data shows

By Marianna Parraga

HOUSTON, Jan 12 (Reuters) – Two China-flagged supertankers that were sailing to Venezuela to pick up debt-paying crude cargoes made U-turns and were headed back to Asia, LSEG shipping data showed on Monday, a sign that the U.S.-blocked South American country might not be directly exporting oil to its main buyer any time soon.

Following the U.S. announcement last week of a deal to export up to 50 million barrels of Venezuelan oil stuck in storage, U.S. President Donald Trump said China would not be deprived of Venezuela’s crude. He did not elaborate on the supply mechanism.

But the Asian nation, the biggest market for Venezuela’s oil, has not received any cargoes from state-run PDVSA since last month as Washington says the oil embargo remains in force.

Global trading houses Vitol and Trafigura are instead readying the first cargoes of the announced $2 billion deal, to be sent to the U.S. and other destinations, including India and China, a negotiation that can ultimately benefit China’s refiners if the traders negotiate cargoes with them.

The very large crude carriers Xingye and Thousand Sunny, which have not been the subject of sanctions, had remained anchored in the Atlantic Ocean for weeks, waiting for directions amid the blockade and Venezuela’s political crisis, triggered by the U.S. capture of President Nicolas Maduro.

PDVSA did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

The vessels are part of a group of three supertankers that cover only the Venezuela-China route to carry crude that pays Venezuela’s debt service to the Asian country. 

The loans are part of Venezuela’s overall debt to China, which used to be its first lender. Shortly after Venezuela was put under U.S. energy sanctions in 2019, China granted a grace period to receive capital payments and negotiated a temporary deal with Caracas so debt service would be compensated with crude cargoes.

China last year was the first destination of Venezuela’s oil with some 642,000 bpd exported, which accounted for three-quarters of total exports of 847,000 bpd, according to internal documents from state-run PDVSA.

The lion’s share of those exports to China ended up at Chinese independent refineries traded by little-known middlemen, while oil cargoes sent to China for debt service payment represented a small fraction of the total, the documents showed.

(Reporting by Marianna Parraga in Houston; Editing by Daina Solomon, Alistair Bell and Matthew Lewis)