Surprised? The first buyer of Venezuelan oil in the U.S. has been named 0 5

The first batch of Venezuelan oil in the U.S. was acquired by a company linked to major donor of President Donald Trump. The first buyer was named by the Financial Times (FT).

On January 15, it became known that the United States sold the first batch of oil from Venezuela for a total of 500 million dollars. According to Semafor, the funds are held in several bank accounts. All of them are under the control of the U.S. administration, but Qatar was chosen for the main account as it is a neutral ground — there is no risk of asset seizure.

The buyer was the trading company Vitol, whose senior trader John Addison donated about six million dollars to political committees supporting Trump. The contract for the purchase of Venezuelan oil is valued at 250 million dollars. The remaining crude was acquired by the major trader Trafigura. The U.S. Department of Energy explained the choice of these companies by stating that they were ready to promptly conduct the first payments for the oil.