The Amuay oil refinery in the Paraguana Peninsula, in northwestern Venezuela. Photo: Genesis García.
Guacamaya, December 3, 2025. Venezuela’s oil exports reached almost 921,000 barrels per day (bpd) in November, according to shipping data and documents seen by Reuters. The slight increase from the previous month would be thanks to more imports of diluents being used to produce exportable grades of crude.
The main destination is still China, which received 80% or 746,000 bpd. Exports to the U.S. rose to 150.000 bpd, and Cuba received 24,000 bpd.
Exports were held back by a large fire in the Petrocedeño oil upgrader last month. Alongside Petropiar, they are the only upgraders that are operational. There are two additional, completely idle facilities. There are also two blending plants at Petromonagas and Petrolera Sinovensa.
However, PDVSA was able to offset the Petrocedeño shutdown by increasing imports of naphtha, which is used as diluent to process extra heavy crude from the Orinoco Oil Belt and produce exportable grades and gasoline for the domestic market.
Volumes for October have also been revised up from 808,000 bpd to about 894,000 bpd, although this was not made explicit in the Reuters article.
Venezuela’s imports of light crude and fuel more than doubled in November, rising to 167,000 bpd from 74,000 bpd. These came primarily from the U.S.—under the Chevron license—and Russia.
Reuters also reported that Venezuela increased its exports of oil byproducts and petrochemicals to 227,000 metric tons from 195,000 tons in October.
The large U.S. military deployment in the Caribbean, which has been building up over the last three months, is yet to affect Venezuela’s oil trade. The OPEC member’s exports have increased by 6% from January to November, while they achieved a 5-year high in September.
