{"id":6709,"date":"2025-05-16T02:06:07","date_gmt":"2025-05-16T06:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/?p=6709"},"modified":"2025-05-16T02:06:07","modified_gmt":"2025-05-16T06:06:07","slug":"traders-rebrand-venezuelan-oil-for-china-as-brazilian-sources-and-tanker-trackers-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/2025\/05\/16\/traders-rebrand-venezuelan-oil-for-china-as-brazilian-sources-and-tanker-trackers-say\/","title":{"rendered":"Traders rebrand Venezuelan oil for China as Brazilian, sources and tanker trackers say"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/business\/energy\/traders-rebrand-venezuelan-oil-china-brazilian-sources-tanker-trackers-say-2025-05-12<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oil traders have rebranded 1 billion dollars worth of Venezuelan crude oil as Brazilian to sell it to Chinese oil refineries in the past year. Chinese refineries are the top buyers of oil from countries with U.S sanctions, but in order to do this in the past shipments had to go through Malaysia to be transferred to secondary ships. Rebranding the oil as Brazilian has allowed these shipments to be made directly to China, saving time and money in the process. To do this, the oil traders electronically changed the location signal of the ship’s departure from Venezuelan ports to Brazilian ports. However, this workaround was revealed by ship trackers and satellite images.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

China is the top buyer of Venezuelan oil. Venezuela cannot sell their oil to many countries due to the sanctions placed on their current government under Maduro\u2019s regime for holding rigged elections, among other human rights violations. China sees these sanctions as unjust and continues to buy oil from Venezuela, providing its illegitimate government with the funding to maintain control of the country. The oil from Venezuela is likely cheaper due to a low number of buyers, which incentivizes China to continue to purchase it. While a small portion of the oil China buys is reported to be Venezuelan, most of it is claimed as Malaysian and now Brazilian, likely to avoid pushback from the international community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

China may begin to receive international pushback as more is revealed about their oil trade with Venezuela. This could include sanctions on China, new international laws about location spoofing or oil rebranding, or even potential ICJ cases (especially considering, unlike ship swapping in Malaysia, the traders are saying the oil is Brazilian without ever making any deals with Brazilian companies or officials). Until then, this will likely continue. Because it is profitable, the oil traders will keep finding ways to get around Venezuela\u2019s sanctions and China will keep buying Venezuelan oil. This could unfortunately allow Maduro\u2019s regime to continue by providing financial support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sanctions on the Venezuelan government have been put in place due to the Maduro regime\u2019s many human rights violations. Under Maduro, the country\u2019s elections have been rigged, speech is censored, and members of the political opposition are considered criminals. The mismanagement of Venezuela\u2019s economy, including its oil sector, has left citizens impoverished, with no access to adequate employment, food, or healthcare. Venezuelan citizens\u2019 first, second, and third generation rights are being violated. While the sanctions are further damaging Venezuela\u2019s economy, it would be wrong for other countries to allow the human rights violations to continue while Maduro gains wealth and suffers no consequences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/business\/energy\/traders-rebrand-venezuelan-oil-china-brazilian-sources-tanker-trackers-say-2025-05-12 Oil traders have rebranded 1 billion dollars worth of Venezuelan crude oil as Brazilian to sell it to Chinese oil refineries in the past year. Chinese refineries are the top buyers of oil from countries with U.S sanctions, but in order to do this in the past shipments had to go through Malaysia to be transferred to secondary ships…. Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":294,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-analysis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/294"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6709"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6710,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6709\/revisions\/6710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}