By Joe Wallace, Costas Paris and Rebecca Feng
While American energy majors hesitate about going back to Venezuela, oil traders and tanker tycoons are diving in.
Within hours of Nicolás Maduro's capture, executives at commodity merchants Vitol and Trafigura were on the phone to shipowners in Athens, said people familiar with the discussions.
The traders had a simple question: Could tankers from Greece's huge merchant fleet sail to Venezuela to load oil if President Trump relaxed sanctions? The answer: We're on it.
It is boom time for Greek shipowners. Even on mainstream sailing routes, freight rates for the largest tankers have surged 90% since Maduro's arrest in anticipation that there will be more oil for the global fleet to accommodate. Tanker owners heading to Venezuela are charging a premium on top of that. Charter prices for midsize tankers, ideal for shuttling oil up to American ports, also leapt.
The discussions between shipowners and commodity traders began even before Trump mentioned oil as a motivation for capturing Maduro. They kicked off a rapid round of dealmaking that positioned some of the West's most swashbuckling companies to profit from the reopening of Venezuela's oil market.
London-based Vitol, and Trafigura in Geneva, quickly secured licenses from Washington allowing them to trade in Venezuela, giving them access while competitors are still barred by sanctions.
They agreed to find buyers for Venezuelan crude the U.S. government says Caracas has given it to sell, including initial batches valued at $250 million apiece, according to people familiar with the matter.
Trafigura's first cargo arrived at Curaçao this week and is now waiting to be loaded onto another vessel bound for the final buyer, according to a person familiar with the matter and the Facebook page of Curaçao's prime minister.
More barrels are set to leave Venezuela in the coming weeks on Greek vessels chartered by Vitol and Trafigura, said oil traders and shipping executives. Other ships are steaming in to enter the fray.
Thenamaris, run by the Martinos family, Okeanis of the Alafouzos family, and TMS Tankers, owned by George Economou, are among the tanker owners taking part.
Even with Washington's blessing, the trade isn't for the fainthearted. Venezuela's ports are in a poor state, and the traders plan to take some of the crude from tankers that have been storing it off the country's coast, a risky endeavor. U.K. and European Union sanctions on Venezuela add further complexity, said David Savage, a partner at London law firm HFW.
Some market players are worried creditors of Venezuela could chase them for the oil or its proceeds. The traders believe an executive order protecting revenues from selling oil gives them legal cover.
Vitol and Trafigura are lining up buyers for the oil, said the traders and shipping executives, who expect some to go to the U.S. Gulf Coast as well as storage tanks in the Caribbean and importers in Europe. Most of the oil will head to American refiners, said Department of Energy spokesman Ben Dietderich.
The oil traders and their tanker partners are all likely to earn a tidy profit to compensate for the risks, the traders and executives said -- though prices for oil and ships are still being negotiated. The shipments could be the start of a stream of exports stewarded by the American government and handled by European companies that are used to working in markets many Western firms wouldn't touch.
Venezuela has handed the U.S. up to 50 million barrels of crude, according to Trump.
Analysts say it is hard to estimate the value of those barrels because China, until recently the main buyer of Venezuela's oil, has been buying at deep discounts, creating a separate, opaque market for the country's heavy crude.
Based on what traders are likely to offer buyers and where the buyers are, those barrels are worth about $2.4 billion to $2.8 billion, according to Argus Media. On Thursday, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said the U.S. has secured prices that are 30% higher than what Venezuelan oil was sold for before Maduro's capture.
Traders play a vital role in commodity markets, arranging logistics and financing to move crude, metals and grain between producers, refiners and consumers. Vitol and its rival Trafigura are two of the biggest. Owned by employees, the pair have relinquished their preinvasion roles as Moscow's go-to oil merchants, making re-entry into Venezuela particularly attractive.
Both firms have tangled with the Justice Department over bribery allegations in the past, including in Latin America. But they have worked to portray themselves as reliable partners for the American government in energy markets and critical-mineral supply chains.
John Addison, one of two Vitol executives who attended Trump's meeting about restarting Venezuela's oil industry, donated to the Trump campaign in 2024.
"We are here to ensure that you are going to be able to move all of this oil all around the world at the best price possible, so that the influence that you have over the Venezuelans will ensure that you get what you want," he said at the meeting.
"We're working with your administration, Mr. President, to bring that Venezuelan oil to the United States," Trafigura CEO Richard Holtum said.
Vitol and Trafigura have their own fleets but also charter vessels from dedicated tanker owners in Greece and elsewhere. The shipping firms are also used to operating in war zones and other hot spots. The industry's founding fathers, Aristotle Onassis and Stavros Niarchos, became rich navigating turbulent oil markets during 20th-century geopolitical crises.
Even before Venezuela's market started to open up, freight rates for the biggest tankers hit one of their highest levels on record in late November. A glut of oil from the U.S. and producers such as Brazil and Canada has boosted demand for tankers and driven up the cost of chartering them, said Anoop Singh, head of research for London-based Oil Brokerage.
Western shipowners are claiming back market share from the obscure players behind the shadow fleet of tankers that have served Venezuela, Russia and Iran in recent years, said Jerry Kalogiratos, chief executive of Athens-based Capital Clean Energy Carriers. American forces have tried to blockade these ships near Venezuela and seized six of them.
"Oil movement is becoming compliant and that needs compliant tankers," said Lars Barstad, CEO of Norwegian tanker owner Frontline.
Write to Joe Wallace at joe.wallace@wsj.com, Costas Paris at costas.paris@wsj.com and Rebecca Feng at rebecca.feng@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 17, 2026 05:30 ET (10:30 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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