The Venezuelan crude market, effectively closed by U.S. sanctions, appears to be reopening to overseas buyers. About three weeks after the U.S. administration of Donald Trump arrested Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, a U.S.-approved tanker is moving to load Venezuelan crude.
On the 21st (local time), Bloomberg reported that Poliegos is en route to load Venezuelan crude and transport it to a port in Italy. Vitol of the Netherlands and Trafigura of Singapore, global energy trading corporations tasked by the United States with selling Venezuelan crude, are listed as the owners of the cargo.
Earlier, Reuters reported that Vitol and Trafigura had won contracts from the U.S. government to transport and sell Venezuelan crude. The two companies obtained temporary special licenses from the United States for negotiations on Venezuelan oil supply and for exports, allowing them to sell up to 50 million barrels of crude.
Poliegos, which is moving to export Venezuelan crude, is scheduled to load 1 million barrels of crude by the end of this month, then head to the port of Augusta, Italy. Augusta is a logistics hub for the Mediterranean and serves as a gateway supplying crude to facilities including Italy's ISAB refinery and a refinery operated by Algeria's state energy corporations Sonatrach.
A person familiar with the matter said another tanker, Folegandros, is also expected to depart Venezuela and head for the Mediterranean within days. Bloomberg said, "The voyages of tankers scheduled to arrive in Europe in February are part of President Trump's plan to support Venezuela's economy, which has struggled due to three decades of mismanagement, lack of investment and corruption."
Until before the 2000s, Venezuela produced about 3.5 million barrels of crude a day and was considered one of the world's largest oil producers. But after Hugo Chávez took power, the oil industry was nationalized, and U.S. economic sanctions compounded the situation, causing crude output to plummet. Major export routes were also limited to a few countries, including China, which formed an anti-U.S. front.
After ousting Maduro, President Trump is pushing to revive Venezuela's oil industry, but with U.S. corporations hesitant to participate, third-country corporations Vitol and Trafigura have moved to take the lead in Venezuela's oil sector. With Venezuela's national debt exceeding $150 billion (about 220 trillion won), significant legal risks that creditors could seize initial crude sale proceeds are deterring U.S. corporations from taking part.
Proceeds from Venezuelan crude sales will be deposited into bank accounts overseen by U.S. authorities and are expected to be used as immediate operating funds by Venezuela's interim government led by Acting President Delcy Rodríguez. According to AFP, Interim President Rodríguez has said she plans to use the oil sale proceeds received from the United States to prevent a decline in the value of the national currency.
Meanwhile, since Dec. last year, the United States has controlled shipments of Venezuelan crude, and the day before it seized the tanker Sagitta in the Caribbean. The U.S. Southern Command, which oversees Latin America, said on the social media platform X, "This action demonstrates our resolve that the export of oil from Venezuela will only be permitted when lawful and pre-coordinated." The move reaffirmed that exports of Venezuelan crude are impossible without U.S. approval.