The U.S. sanctions on Venezuela’s oil industry have tightened the global heavy to medium crude oil market, sending oil buyers scrambling for alternatives to the heavy Venezuelan oil. Refiners in the United States and Europe have started to replace Venezuela’s oil with some of the crudes produced closer to their home, while the world’s largest oil importer and key demand growth driver, China, has been also looking to Venezuela’s Latin American neighbors to fill in some of the gap. Brazil is emerging as a big winner from the sanctions on Venezuela—it boosted its oil exports to China in the first quarter of 2019 and is ... (full story)