Reports: China Expected to Replace Venezuelan Oil with Iranian Crude
Oil industry analysts expect China to replace its oil imports from Venezuela with increased purchases of Iranian crude, following the arrest of China’s ally Nicolás Maduro by U.S. forces over the weekend.
President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that Maduro’s successor, interim president Delcy Rodríguez, and other Venezuelan officials have agreed to sell up to $2 billion in crude oil to the United States. The deal would divert oil coveted by China to U.S. refineries.
Trump explicitly instructed Rodríguez to evict Chinese, Russian, Iranian, and Cuban agents from Venezuela and sever all economic ties with those nations. He also demanded exclusive contracts and favorable prices with American refiners for Venezuelan crude oil. The socialist Maduro regime long ago destroyed Venezuela’s refining capacity, so the oil-rich but desperately impoverished nation is heavily reliant upon foreign refineries.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio reportedly told U.S. lawmakers that Venezuela has filled every available tanker and storage facility with crude oil, frustrated by Trump’s blockade on sanctions-defying oil shipments, and the post-Maduro government faces financial collapse in a few weeks if it cannot generate income by selling its crude oil. These two factors would presumably make Caracas receptive to Trump’s demands to divert its shipments from China to the United States.
Trump said on Tuesday that Venezuela would hand over 30 million to 50 million barrels of sanctioned oil to the United States immediately. Other administration sources said shipments to American refiners would continue “indefinitely” thereafter, with the profits to be held in U.S.-controlled accounts and shares released back to Venezuela at U.S. discretion. Most of that oil would have otherwise gone to China. (Read more from “Reports: China Expected to Replace Venezuelan Oil with Iranian Crude” HERE)
