Venezuelan barrels leave a small set of terminals and then choose an ocean. In 2026 that choice flipped. Reuters’ Marianna Parraga and Mircely Guanipa, in a 3 August shipping-data note, put July oil exports at 1.16 million barrels a day, down from 1.2 million bpd in June. Exports to the United States jumped to some 786,000 bpd — the highest since early 2019.1
Those two numbers are the ones that matter for a tanker map. Most of the July program was a short Caribbean/Gulf of Mexico voyage, not a Pacific or Cape run to Asia.
July 2026, as Reuters compiled it
The same Reuters dispatch — retrieved here from Baird Maritime (4 August) and BOE Report (3 August), which reprint the Caracas dateline in full — adds the destination split and the loaders:
- Total exports peaked at 1.24 million bpd in May, then fell for two months as less crude and fuel left onshore and floating storage.
- US-bound volumes rose steadily from 284,000 bpd in January to some 786,000 bpd in July.
- Exports to India fell to some 178,000 bpd from 277,000 bpd.
- Cargoes to Europe declined to some 82,200 bpd from 99,000 bpd.
- Chevron, PDVSA’s main joint-venture partner, shipped some 293,000 bpd, almost unchanged.
- Trading houses including Vitol, Trafigura and Novum Energy shipped some 604,000 bpd, below June’s 775,000 bpd.
- Oil by-products and petrochemicals were 324,000 metric tons in July, versus 224,000 tons in June.
- Venezuela imported some 81,000 bpd of heavy naphtha to dilute its heavy crude.1
Reuters framed the recovery against a January oil-supply pact between Washington and interim President Delcy Rodríguez, after a US naval blockade and the ouster of Nicolás Maduro. That pact, the story said, allowed Venezuelan oil to return to the United States, Europe and India, mostly through trading houses.1
China is not in that July destination list.
China drops out; India is the remaining Asia route
In March, Reuters reported the loss of China as a destination in plain shipping terms. February exports fell 6.5 percent from January to some 737,000 bpd, because larger shipments to the United States and Europe could not offset “the loss of what used to be the OPEC country’s main market, China.” Exports to Asia averaged some 48,000 bpd, down 67 percent from 145,000 bpd in January and from more than 600,000 bpd the previous year.2
The same March dispatch said direct exports to the United States rose 32 percent to about 375,000 bpd, European shipments increased ninefold to 158,000 bpd, and Chevron sold its first cargo of Venezuelan heavy crude to India’s Reliance Industries in three years. Jose, the main oil port, handles about 70 percent of shipments; a shortage of VLCCs was still limiting load times.2
By July, TradeVAE, citing Kpler, wrote that China had recorded no purchases of Venezuelan oil since Maduro’s removal earlier in the year, while the United States and India remained the largest buyers. Kpler’s July crude-only total in that note (856,000 bpd) is lower than Reuters’ 1.16 million bpd, which includes fuel drawn from storage; the two series should not be added or averaged. The useful Kpler point is the destination: China absent, India smaller.3
On a map, that is a route change. A Jose-loaded tanker bound for the United States is a Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico voyage. A tanker bound for India is an Atlantic crossing and a long eastbound haul. A tanker bound for China used to be the default long-haul; in the 2026 Reuters and Kpler prints cited here, that default is gone.
Why the US short-haul absorbed the barrels
Reuters does not publish a US Gulf versus US East Coast split in the July note, so this page does not invent one. What it does say is that US-bound volumes became the single largest destination, and that Chevron plus the trading houses are the loaders. The physical implication for AIS watchers is straightforward: more Venezuelan-flagged and charter-party tankers should appear on the short northbound tracks toward the US Gulf and Caribbean discharge options, and fewer on the old Far East strings.
India is the residual Asia customer in the July Reuters table (178,000 bpd). That is still a real route — VLCCs to the west coast of India — but it is no longer the volume story. TradeVAE linked the halving of Indian liftings in Kpler’s crude series to a pause in the Iran war that freed Middle Eastern barrels previously trapped in the Gulf.3 If that mechanism holds, Venezuelan long-haul demand is partly a function of whether Hormuz is actually moving oil.
What the live map can show
OilRoutes does not keep a historical export ledger. It will show tankers that are broadcasting near Jose, in the Caribbean, or on an eastbound Atlantic heading. It will not tell you whether a dark shuttle is lightering Merey onto a VLCC. Use the Reuters monthly prints for volumes; use the map for where those hulls are today.