Trump’s Venezuela Oil Grab Is Pushing Chinese Refiners to Canada

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-08/trump-s-venezuela-oil-grab-is-pushing-chinese-refiners-to-canada?=true&sref=1VjHMKkW

24 Comments

  1. BBG’s highlights:

    >China’s refiners are looking for alternative oil sources, including Canada, after being cut off from Venezuelan crude.

    >Chinese inquiries about Canadian oil supplies have increased, with processors considering Canadian grades as a replacement for Venezuela’s Merey crude.

    >Canadian crude is more expensive than Venezuelan crude, but its shorter transportation time and more freight options may make it a viable alternative for Chinese refiners.

  2. Acceptable_Visit_115 on

    So much for the doomers waving their arms around and saying “wahhhhhh Americans now own Venezuelan oil so they’ll stop buying from Canada”.

    It seems like Canadian energy has no issue attracting foreign buyers after all.

  3. shiftless_wonder on

    And how does Canada manage to actually physically transport this oil to China? A new pipeline, that’s right. The same one BC and Eby fought tooth and nail to stop.

  4. Consistent-Study-287 on

    It would not surprise me to see PetroChina as a supporter for a new oil pipeline going through BC. They own 15% of LNGCanada so they aren’t strangers to investing in pipelines in Canada, Carney is visiting next week, and the Venezuela situation does mean they might have more appetite for Canadian Oil.

  5. Arctic_Chilean on

    Great, now the US and their “Donroe” doctrine will be aimed north towards us next

  6. Exactly as expected! Global oil consumption remains unchanged regardless of the takeover of Venezuela oil. Former buyers of Venezuelan oil will need to source alternatives which creates an opportunity for Canada. The key now is expanding access to additional markets! Pipelines!!

  7. RandomPersonInCanada on

    I don’t know anything about this business. But oil is still needed, and there will always be buyers.

  8. When you think you’re playing chess on a mahjong table. 😊… unexpected results.

  9. Chinese state-owned companies do already own minority stakes in Canadian oil. Sold by our patriot JT

  10. AugmentedKing on

    “Please China, buy more of our oil. We’ll even drop the ev tariff. If we could set up a payment structure outside of Swift, that would be great as well”
    Quoted from my dreams

  11. MortgageAware3355 on

    Good. At least Canada won’t be dealing with an authoritarian dictator….oh, wait.

  12. Lisan_Al-NaCL on

    I dont know how we can ship more to Asia. Transmountain is already at 90%+ capacity – shipping roughly 825,000 bbl/day

  13. CookhouseOfCanada on

    Someone wrote up a very detailed post about why this is good for Canada instead of bad. Due to the oil in Venezuela needing to be put on ships to be refined greatly increases costs compared to Canadian via pipeline.

    All this did was push Russia and China out of the Venezuela market. Which is no beneficial to Canada as China wants more of ours.

    Big W from Carney to immedietly go to China in the wake of this to seize the business opportunity.