After Europe and the United States completely gave themselves a hard hand on oil, natural gas and other energy sources, the United States suddenly gave the "green light" to Venezuela in terms of energy, and China may become the largest buyer of Russian oil.
Since the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, in order to cooperate with the United States in suppressing Russia, the European Union has also taken turns to launch sanctions against Russia. Just earlier this month, the European Union announced the sixth round of sanctions against Russia, and if all goes well, the EU's oil imports from Russia will be reduced by 90% by the end of this year. After the EU's move, senior Russian officials pointed out that the direct victims of the EU's embargo decision are European consumers, and if nothing else, European countries will have more serious oil shortages.
In fact, as the Russian side said, European countries have also suffered serious reactions while sanctioning Russia. In the context of the world's energy crisis, the EU's hasty launch of sanctions against Russia is also a surge in oil prices.
Obviously, for the EU now, the most urgent issue is to resolve the crisis. At this time, the United States has a new trend, and recently there is news that the US government is preparing to allow Venezuela to transport oil to European countries. According to media reports, the US government is currently planning to loosen the ban on oil exports to Venezuela to some extent through a private way to ensure that these oils can be delivered to European allies, thereby alleviating the energy crisis faced by the latter.
Prior to this, Venezuela had been subject to U.S. energy sanctions for years. With Europe now experiencing a severe energy crisis, the Biden administration is already actively planning to no longer strictly restrict Venezuelan exports, but instead allow the country's oil to enter Europe.
But because Venezuela's own oil production capacity is limited and cannot support that much demand, the United States has set its sights on China, the country's largest exporter. According to Reuters, Washington wants to ship some of the oil that should have been sold to China to Europe, and this practice is tantamount to a disguised robbery.
Therefore, the Biden administration's series of operations are essentially to forcibly transfer the energy pressure of the European Union to China, which is also a hard condition set by the United States to be willing to give the sworn enemy Venezuela a "green light".
In addition, in order to further alleviate the energy crisis, the United States is putting pressure on Saudi Arabia. Recently, Saudi Aramco informed the Chinese company that in July, it will no longer provide oil to the Chinese side in accordance with the contract, and the Saudi side said that the amount of oil supplied will be reduced, but the specific amount has not been publicly stated, but due to the huge oil trade base of the two countries, any change will affect the amount of oil imports.
For this Saudi Arabia to reduce the supply of oil, foreign media reported that Saudi Arabia will start from July, increase the price of oil in the Asian region, the price will be higher than the average of 6.5 US dollars, foreign media analysis Saudi Arabia is doing this in response to the US oil policy, the oil sent to Asia will be transferred to Europe and the United States, and emphasize that this is a good cooperation between Saudi Arabia and the United States. Although the foreign media said that it is not credible, it is clear that Saudi Arabia agreed to this request to increase production under pressure from the United States. Therefore, this time Saudi Arabia reduced its supply of oil to China, mainly to meet the oil demand of Europe.
But even if the United States asks Saudi Arabia and Venezuela to reduce oil exports to China, it will not have much impact on China's oil supply. Because China's oil imports are decentralized, not from a single country. Countries like Russia, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq and Oman are all suppliers of oil to China.
Therefore, if the United States takes away a part of the oil export share that belongs to China from Venezuela and Saudi Arabia, I am afraid that it will push China, a big customer, to Russia. According to relevant data, Russia's annual oil production in 2021 reached 534 million tons, with an average daily output of 10.5 million barrels. Although the United States plays a set of conspiracies and tricks, but they are underestimating Russia's position in the global energy market, under the sanctions of the United States and Europe, Russian oil exports are also blocked, if Saudi Arabia and Venezuela reduce exports to China, China can take the opportunity to import Russian oil, and perhaps become the largest buyer of Russian oil.