How much of Venezuela's oil revenue in 2023 was exported to China versus other buyers?
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Executive summary
Official and secondary datasets place Venezuela’s crude-oil export revenue for 2023 at roughly $4.04–$4.05 billion, but the sources provided do not supply a definitive, source-verified breakdown of that revenue by buyer for 2023 — meaning an exact dollar figure or percentage sent specifically to China in 2023 cannot be firmly calculated from the reporting supplied [1] [2] [3].
1. What the headline numbers say about Venezuelan oil revenue in 2023
Multiple trade and analytics outlets converge on a 2023 oil-exports revenue figure of about $4.04–$4.05 billion for Venezuela, a dramatic contraction from the country’s historical highs and the basis for much commentary about Caracas’s diminished oil income in 2023 [1] [2] [3].
2. What the sources say about who bought Venezuela’s oil in 2023 — and where the gaps are
Available regional and flow data indicate Asia was the dominant destination for Venezuelan crude in 2023: Statista (quoting OPEC) reports Asia (excluding China) as the main region by volume, at about 248,000 barrels per day or roughly 45% of exports in 2023, while other reporting and agency datasets note a broader shift toward Asian buyers after Western sanctions [4] [5]. However, none of the supplied snippets provide a clean, attributable revenue split for 2023 that isolates China’s share of the $4.04–$4.05 billion total — the OEC/Observatory figure gives total export revenue but not the buyer-by-buyer revenue breakdown in the provided excerpts [1] [6].
3. Conflicting signals about China’s role — large buyer, but by how much and when?
One factual thread in the material cautions that China is Caracas’s largest buyer in recent years: An Anadolu Agency summary cites PDVSA data showing China accounted for about 80% of all oil exports in a 2024 snapshot and reports very large flows headed to Chinese ports in late 2024, but that is a 2024 statement and cannot be used as a precise 2023 revenue share without additional corroborating 2023-specific figures [3]. By contrast, the Statista/OPEC breakdown for 2023 calls out Asia excluding China as the single largest regional destination by volume, implying China’s portion of 2023 volumes may not have been the sole or dominant Asian destination in that year [4]. The EIA country brief and Reuters reporting document shifting trade patterns and higher aggregate export volumes in 2023 after U.S. sanctions were eased, but again do not present a buyer-level revenue percentage for China for 2023 in the supplied excerpts [5] [7].
4. Bottom line and what would be needed to close the question
From the materials provided: Venezuela’s oil export revenue in 2023 was roughly $4.04–$4.05 billion [1] [2] [3]; sources confirm China is a major buyer but do not provide an unequivocal, source-cited percentage or dollar amount of that 2023 revenue that went specifically to China within the supplied snippets [4] [3]. To produce a precise China-versus-others revenue split for 2023 would require either PDVSA or customs/shipping revenue data that itemizes buyers by value for calendar-year 2023, or a verifiable OEC/UN COMTRADE/OPEC table that lists export values to China and to other buyers for 2023 — none of which appear in the supplied reporting extracts [6] [5]. The supplied sources do, however, support the defensible claim that most of Venezuela’s modest 2023 oil-export earnings flowed toward Asian markets and that China was among the top buyers shortly thereafter, but a precise 2023 percentage to China cannot be asserted from these excerpts alone [4] [3].