Venezuelan crude: refiners buy direct from PDVSA and the arbitrage closes
Vitol and Trafigura moved more than 100 million barrels in six months because they held the licence no one else had. That privilege is already thinning.
Venezuelan crude returned to the market through the traders' door, and that happened for an administrative reason, not a commercial one: in January, Vitol and Trafigura signed the only agreements Washington would endorse, and on that paper they took more than 100 million barrels over six months for resale to final buyers. That access monopoly has begun to break. Since May, Phillips 66 and Reliance Industries have been buying cargoes directly from PDVSA; in July, Repsol loaded Merey 16 at the port of Jose with no intermediary. The change is not about names — it is about where the margin sits.
The fact · PDVSA is restoring its pre-2019 model: supply contracts with joint-venture partners and refiners ahead of intermediaries. The May, June and July cargo allocations already reflect the shift.
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