Venezuela Dark Shipping Their Oil "via Brazil" to China
Shippers tamper with the tankers' signal to make them look like departing from Brazil when they are actually departing from Venezuela
translation: Merchants rename Venezuelan Petroleum to China as Brazilian, say sources and oil tracker
UPDATE 16 May: added link to TankTrackers.com in closing paragraphs
via Tupi Report, TG
Summary
China registered some 67,000 bpd of mixed bitumen imports from Brazil since July worth $1.2 bln
Shippers tamper with the tankers' signal to make them look like departing from Brazil
Apart from shortening voyages, the practice helps secure bank financing
Reuters source
A report published by Reuters revealed that oil trading companies may have shipped over US$ 1 billion worth of Venezuelan oil to China disguised as Brazilian product since at least July 2024
This scheme allows tankers to sail directly from Venezuela to China, bypassing stops in Malaysian waters and shortening the trip by about four days.
In addition to reducing costs, the practice helps circumvent U.S. and other international sanctions imposed on Venezuelan oil due to Nicolás Maduro’s regime and its repression.
One piece of evidence is Chinese customs data, which shows that China imported about 67,000 barrels per day of "mixed bitumen" from Brazil between July 2024 and March 2025, totaling US$ 1.2 billion.
However, Petrobras president Magda Chambriard stated in Houston last week that the Brazilian state oil company exports "mainly pre-salt crude oil to China, not bitumen".
Reuters further reported that Brazilian customs data shows no export of mixed bitumen to China since at least 2023.
In reality, many of the cargoes labeled as Brazilian mixed bitumen contain Venezuela’s Merey crude, a blend of extra-heavy and lighter oil.
This was confirmed by trading sources, Vortexa Analytics, and internal documents from PDVSA, Venezuela’s state oil company.
Since the sanctions imposed in 2019, Venezuela has been relying heavily on ‘the dark fleet’ to export oil to China.
According to Vortexa’s data, some common methods used by the dark tankers include AIS disabling (Automatic Identification System - similar to a plane’s transponder), where the signal goes dark, making it difficult to track.
AIS spoofing disguises the Venezuelan origin, falsely labelling the oil as originating from other countries, particularly Malaysia and Brazil.
The investigation used maritime navigation data, satellite imagery, and coastal photographs compiled and analyzed by TankerTrackers.com.
Neither the Chinese nor the Venezuelan governments have commented on the matter.