Regarding the myth that Venezuela sells oil to Israel. Market rearrangement, opaque trade, and disinformation

In recent weeks, a narrative has gained traction in certain media outlets: the supposed resumption of direct oil sales from Venezuela to Israel. This narrative attempts to portray an image of ideological inconsistency, supposedly undermined by economic interests. However, a detailed analysis of the current dynamics of the oil market, characterized by a complex web of licenses, intermediaries, and logistical bottlenecks in the United States, reveals a much more nuanced reality.

The presence of Venezuelan crude in destinations like Israel is not the result of a sovereign decision by Petróleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA), but an indirect consequence of the reconfiguration of the global energy market orchestrated from Washington.

Logistical bottleneck and rearrangement in the Gulf of Mexico

The return of Venezuelan oil to the US market following the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores on January 3 has generated an unexpected backlog in the Gulf Coast's refining infrastructure. According to secondary OPEC sources, Venezuelan production, which stood at 830,000 barrels per day in January—a figure not seen since May 2014 and representing a drop from the 917,000 barrels per day of December—began to shift toward US refineries that had not processed Venezuelan heavy crude for years due to the sanctions imposed by Trump between 2017 and 2019.

Valero Energy Corporation has emerged as the most aggressive player in this scenario. The company, which owns the second-largest U.S. refining network capable of processing Venezuelan heavy crude, projects importing 6.5 million barrels next March, equivalent to approximately 210,000 barrels per day. This figure would represent the largest volume processed by the company since the start of the U.S. oil embargo against Venezuela and could position Valero above Chevron as the leading refiner of Venezuelan crude in the United States.

Valero's Vice President of Crude Supply and Trading, Randy Hawkins, confirmed during the Q4 2025 earnings call that the company was in negotiations with authorized sellers of Venezuelan crude, anticipating that it would constitute a "fairly large portion" of its heavy crude purchases during February and March. The company has taken advantage of reported discounts of nearly $9 per barrel to Brent crude, boosting refining margins that were already showing a significant recovery: in Q4 2025, Valero reported operating income of $1.6 billion, compared to $348 million the previous year.

However, this sudden influx of heavy crude has overwhelmed the region's logistical capacity. Gulf Coast refineries, designed to process a diversified basket of crudes, now face an imbalance between available supply and their storage and domestic transportation capacity. Canadian heavy crude, which traditionally competed with Venezuelan crude for space in these facilities, began trading at discounts of $11 to $11.50 below Brent on the Gulf Coast, approximately $4 cheaper than the average price in the fourth quarter of 2025.

This logistical pressure has forced marketing companies to diversify their export destinations, not by decision of PDVSA, but due to the physical impossibility of absorbing the additional volumes in the US market.

Vitol and Trafigura, the two main trading companies that obtained special licenses from the Treasury to trade Venezuelan crude, have begun offering shipments to refiners in China and India for March delivery following the White House meeting. Trafigura CEO Richard Holtum told President Trump during the White House meeting that the company was working "to get that Venezuelan oil to the United States," adding that the first vessel "should be loading next week."

Other giants such as Phillips 66 and Citgo have also requested authorization to buy crude directly from Venezuela, seeking to secure raw materials for their refining complexes.

Customer diversification vs. misinformation

The mechanism imposed by Washington for the marketing of Venezuelan crude has transferred operational control from PDVSA to private intermediaries under US supervision. Vitol and Trafigura not only facilitate logistics but also determine the final destinations of the shipments.

This structure has generated a complex network of resales that removes the Venezuelan state from the final commercial decisions. US Energy Secretary Chris Wright confirmed during his visit to Caracas on February 11 that "China has already bought some of the crude that has been sold by the US government," without specifying volumes or commercial terms. This statement demonstrates that Venezuelan crude is being redirected to Asian markets as a result of the commercial strategy of authorized trading houses .

In this context, Bloomberg's February 10 report on an alleged shipment of Venezuelan crude to Israel should be analyzed with caution. The information, attributed to "people with knowledge of the deal" who requested anonymity, suggested that approximately 200,000 barrels of the cargo carried by the vessel Poliegos (IMO 9746621)—initially destined for the port of Sarroch in Sardinia, Italy—would be redirected to the Haifa refinery operated by the Bazan Group.

The Venezuelan government, through its Vice President for Communication and Culture, Miguel Pérez Pirela, labeled the report "false" and "fabricated disinformation." This official denial comes in the context of the diplomatic break with Israel in 2009 under the presidency of Commander Hugo Chávez, and Venezuela's long history of solidarity with the Palestinian cause. Sources consulted by teleSUR emphasized that there are no official shipping records or government confirmations to support Bloomberg's version of events.

The ambiguity of the case lies in the inherent opacity of maritime oil trade. Israel does not publicly disclose its crude oil suppliers, and tankers frequently disappear from digital tracking systems near Israeli ports, as Bloomberg itself acknowledged. The Bazan Group declined to comment on the alleged shipment, while the Israeli Energy Ministry maintained its policy of not revealing supply sources, according to the Latin Times .

What is clear is that, had the shipment to Israel materialized, this decision would not have originated from PDVSA or the Venezuelan state, but rather from the trading chain controlled by Vitol—the majority shareholder of the Sarroch refinery—and subject to authorization from the U.S. Treasury Department. General License 48, issued on February 10 by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), explicitly prohibits transactions with Russian, Iranian, North Korean, Cuban, and Chinese entities, but does not establish restrictions on shipments to Israel, leaving trading companies free to determine destinations within the Western bloc.

Perspectives and changes in the dynamics of the global oil market

The reconfiguration of Venezuelan oil trade "under US supervision" raises fundamental questions about the country's energy sovereignty and commercial autonomy. Wright has stated that US control over Venezuelan oil exports will remain in place for an "indefinite" period, conditioning Caracas authorities' access to oil revenues on the submission of "budget requests" subject to Washington's approval.

To date, the revenue generated by this scheme shows a significant gap compared to initial projections. While President Trump announced a landmark $2 billion deal in January for 30-50 million barrels, US officials have confirmed only $500 million deposited into Treasury-controlled accounts in Qatar, with another $300 million expected in February. The president has publicly acknowledged that the United States will "retain a portion" of these revenues, without specifying percentages or distribution mechanisms.

PDVSA, for its part, has adopted a defensive stance toward the new commercial architecture. Some sources indicate that the state-owned company refuses to sell directly to companies that do not hold individual US Treasury licenses, maintaining a cautious position in the face of regulatory uncertainty. This, however, is marginal in a context where marketing decisions have been effectively outsourced to Vitol and Trafigura.

The underlying geopolitical strategy aims to contain Chinese influence in the Western Hemisphere. Some analysts, such as Igor Collazos, interpret License 48 as a "territorial marking" operation by Washington, designed to consolidate areas of influence in a "final stage of the game to confine China out of the Western Hemisphere." During his visit to the Orinoco Oil Belt, Wright stated that cooperation between U.S. companies and Venezuelan resources is "sky-high," a declaration that underscores the strategic nature of the oil relationship.

For global markets, the partial reintegration of Venezuelan crude represents both an opportunity and a source of uncertainty. India has emerged as a potential beneficiary of the redirected flows, with state-owned companies such as Indian Oil and Hindustan Petroleum joining private refiner Reliance Industries in acquiring 2 million barrels of Merey crude in the coming weeks. This realignment could put pressure on the Russian and West Asian heavy crude markets, traditional suppliers to the Indian refining industry.

Venezuelan production, which reached one million barrels per day in February according to Wright, still faces severe structural limitations. Despite legislative reforms that reduce taxes and royalties for private investors, the oil infrastructure requires massive investments that US corporations, according to ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods, consider premature while the country remains "uninvestable" from a political risk perspective.

In this scenario, the narrative surrounding direct Venezuelan exports to Israel serves a political destabilization agenda rather than reflecting commercial reality. Venezuela's lack of control over the final destinations of its crude oil, the deliberate opacity of maritime trade, and the mandatory intermediation through Washington-authorized trading houses create a market where destination decisions are driven by profit margin calculations and US geopolitical strategies, not by sovereign foreign policy.

The Venezuelan government's denunciation of the Bloomberg report as fabricated news should be understood not only as a factual statement, but as a vindication of diplomatic principles that the new trade structure imposed from abroad jeopardizes.