China-Bound ‘Dark’ Crude Tankers Make It Out Of Venezuelan Waters

There’s a continued microscope on Caracas, and world media is also currently heavily focused on New York City where forcibly deposed President Nicolas Maduro is appearing Monday before a federal court.

But amid all the fast-moving developments, about a dozen tankers loaded with Venezuelan crude and fuel have ‘snuck out’ of Venezuelan waters in recent days, reportedly in dark mode – or with tracking transponders off.

Reuters says that all of the vessels are under US sanctions, with the publication pointing out that “The departures could be a relief for Venezuela’s state-run oil company PDVSA, which had accumulated a very large inventory of floating storage amid the U.S. blockade, begun last month, dragging the country’s oil exports to a standstill.”

The ‘rogue’ tankers and their being able to evade the US naval blockade were first flagged by maritime monitor TankerTrackers.com:

At least four of the departed tankers left Venezuelan waters through a route north of Margarita Island after briefly stopping near the country’s maritime border, TankerTrackers.com said, after identifying the vessels is satellite images.

A source with knowledge of the departures’ paperwork told Reuters that at least four supertankers had been cleared by Venezuelan authorities in recent days to leave Venezuelan waters in dark mode.

There’s been some degree of confusion related to the possibility that with Maduro now having been removed from power and in US custody, Washington might have altered or revised its full force “oil embargo” on Venezuela. 

But this means that these some dozen tankers will be offloaded to the Latin American country’s largest customers, foremost among them China.

With Maduro out, has there indeed been a quick shift in US posture?

For now, China’s impacted Venezuelan imports will be cushioned by the significant amount of tankers still at sea, per fresh reporting from Bloomberg:

“The loss of Venezuelan barrels hurts teapots the most,” said Michal Meidan, director of the China Energy Program at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. They account for roughly half of China’s imports from the South American nation, with state-owned firms taking about a third, and bigger independent refineries buying only limited volumes, she said. 

While the future of Venezuela and its oil sector is still very murky, a hoard of sanctioned crude in floating storage will cushion Chinese buyers in the coming months. Almost 82 million barrels is currently on tankers in waters off China and Malaysia, according to data intelligence firm Kpler. More than a quarter is Venezuelan and the rest is Iranian, it said. 

The four tankers are AQUILA II (9281152), BERTHA (9292163), VERONICA III (9326055) and VESNA (9233349). Here are three of them, spotted by @TankerTrackers in a single @CopernicusEU satellite image taken yesterday, leaving Venezuela’s main oil port and heading northeast. pic.twitter.com/yH7BRMlrF7

— Christiaan Triebert (@trbrtc) January 5, 2026

Also, on Monday there are reports of US-bound oil as well, with a Chevron-chartered vessel carrying Venezuela crude currently en route to the US Gulf coast, shipping data shows.