CARACAS/MEXICO CITY, (Reuters) – Last year, China replaced the United States as the No. 1 importer of oil from Venezuela, yet another front in the heated rivalry between Washington and Beijing.
Crude from Petroleos de Venezuela SA, or PDVSA, kept arriving at Chinese ports with the help of a Switzerland-based unit of Rosneft, Russia’s state-owned oil company, and a roundabout delivery method that made it appear as if the oil’s origin was Malaysia, Reuters has found.
Washington in February slapped sanctions on Rosneft Trading SA, the Geneva-based subsidiary of Rosneft , which it alleges was helping Venezuela to export its oil using so-called ship-to-ship (STS) transfers to mask the true origin of the crude.
Harrell believes U.S. sanctions give Washington authority to punish foreign companies that purchase PDVSA oil through a middleman – particularly if the company “knows or should have known it was Venezuelan crude.”
The company that lifted the oil from Venezuela for the China shipments identified by Reuters was Rosneft Trading, according to internal PDVSA documents reviewed by Reuters.
