On Tuesday, four shipping sources said that Chinese oil companies might soon stop using any tanker that has formed a connection with Venezuelan oil in the past year to avoid the US sanctions.
Previously on Friday, US resources said that Washington may tighten sanctions by adding dozens of more tankers to an existing blacklist.
According to broker Clarksons Platou Securities, since December 2019 alone, more than 2% of the global fleet, or 77 tankers, had called at Venezuela’s main oil ports.
The shipping sector is now scrambling to swap out sanctioned vessels for others, leading to a knock-on effect on the rest of the oil tanker market.
Leading Chinese oil companies Unipec, PetroChina, and CNPC could not immediately be reached for comment.
