Who Replaced Iraq at America's Oil Docks?

From June to September 2026, not a single tonne of cargo shipped from Iraq arrived at a U.S. port in our records. A year earlier, ships loaded in Iraq brought 2.33 million tonnes to U.S. docks in the first nine months of 2025. Over the same stretch of 2026, ships loaded in Venezuela, a country that sent the United States almost nothing in the summer of 2025, unloaded 6.75 million tonnes. One supplier went dark and another came back, and the official trade numbers that would show it are still weeks away. The manifests already know. This is how the map of America's imported fuel was redrawn, and what September's arrivals tell us about where it goes next.

A note before we start: everything below comes from CargoFax U.S. ocean import bills of lading, measured in tonnes and shipments, not dollars. Country means where the cargo was loaded (shipped from), not where it was made. Repeated rows for the same bill, HS code and weight are now counted once, and container weights recorded 1,000 times too high are removed, so these figures are lower than in the first version of this issue.

A lighter month, led by fuel

U.S. ocean imports weighed 48.9 million tonnes in September 2026, down 5.7% from 51.8 million in August and up 9.6% from 44.6 million in September 2025.

The biggest single part of the monthly decline came from one chapter of the tariff book. Mineral fuels and oils (HS 27: crude oil, refined products, coal and gas) weighed 8.07 million tonnes in September, down 13.1% from 9.28 million in August and 4.3% below the 8.44 million tonnes of September 2025. Over the first nine months, fuel imports came to 65.3 million tonnes, down 19.4% from 81.0 million in the same months of 2025.

We did not find reporting that ties the September dip to a single cause; autumn refinery maintenance and the timing of individual tankers are both possible. What the data does show clearly is something bigger than one month: the countries that fill those tankers have changed.

The supplier that went dark

Iraq was a steady source of U.S. fuel cargoes in 2025. Ships loaded there brought between 38,825 and 624,363 tonnes a month from February to September 2025, peaking in June 2025. The flow continued into early 2026, at 0.32 million tonnes in January and 0.38 million tonnes in February.

Then it stopped. In March 2026, cargo shipped from Iraq fell to 660 tonnes. April was under 1,000 tonnes, May was 14 tonnes, and from June through September our records show no ocean imports shipped from Iraq at all.

The timing points to the Gulf. Shafaq News, citing EIA data, reported the closure of the Strait of Hormuz on February 28, 2026, through which Iraq previously routed roughly 90% of its crude. The same report said U.S. imports of Iraqi crude resumed at 6,000 barrels per day after seven consecutive weeks at zero in mid-August. Six thousand barrels a day is a trickle next to what Iraq used to send, and it has not yet appeared in our lading records.

There is a wrinkle worth keeping. Official Census figures, which record country of origin, still show some Iraqi imports in July and August 2026, far below a year earlier. Our bills of lading record the country where the ship was loaded. The likeliest explanation is that a small amount of Iraqi crude is being loaded somewhere other than Iraq. Both datasets agree on the direction: the Iraqi flow has shrunk to almost nothing.

The supplier that came back

Venezuela's arc runs the other way. From January to April 2025, cargo shipped from Venezuela ran at 0.26 million to 0.45 million tonnes a month. From June to August 2025 it was close to zero. Then, month by month in 2026:

• January: 0.30 million tonnes
• March: 0.73 million tonnes
• April: 0.49 million tonnes
• June: 0.84 million tonnes
• July: 1.19 million tonnes, the highest month in our data, which begins in January 2025
• August: 1.08 million tonnes
• September: 0.78 million tonnes

Put the two lines on one chart and the swap is hard to miss. As Iraq fell away after February, Venezuela kept climbing, apart from a dip in April.

Public reporting explains the turn. Reuters reported that a key oil supply pact signed by Washington in January with interim President Delcy Rodriguez allowed Venezuelan oil to flow back to the United States, and that U.S.-bound exports reached about 786,000 barrels a day in July, the highest since early 2019. Reuters also reported that Venezuelan oil has been under Washington's supervision since U.S. forces captured then-President Nicolás Maduro in January. Our July peak lines up with theirs.

Add up the nine months and the scale is clear. From January to September 2026, cargo shipped from Venezuela weighed 6.75 million tonnes, compared with 1.77 million tonnes in the same months of 2025.

Almost all of it is fuel: of September's arrivals from Venezuela, about 88% by weight was HS 27. In the third quarter alone, Venezuela shipped 3.05 million tonnes to U.S. ports, against 0.11 million in Q3 2025.

The twist: fewer arrivals, more departures

If you only read our September line, you might think the comeback stalled. Arrivals from Venezuela fell 27.6%, from 1.08 million tonnes in August to 0.78 million in September.

Reuters' tanker data says the opposite about departures. Shipments to the United States rose to about 629,000 barrels a day in September, up from 553,000 in August, even as Venezuela's total exports fell nearly 9% to 1.08 million barrels a day.

Both can be true. Reuters counts a cargo when it leaves Venezuela; we count it when it arrives in the United States. A slow August of loadings can become a slow September of arrivals, so the two series should not be expected to match month by month. The October arrivals will tell us whether September was timing or a turn.

Freight is the part to watch. Citing Reuters, eAduana reported that hiring an Aframax tanker from Venezuela to the U.S. Gulf cost about US$3.5 million, against about US$1.35 million at the start of 2026, and that trading houses Vitol and Trafigura began demanding bigger discounts for Venezuelan crude. Freight costs are now part of the Venezuela story. Whether they slow it is an open question.

The third piece of the map is Mexico. Cargo shipped from Mexico weighed 1.73 million tonnes in September 2026, down 30.7% from 2.50 million in September 2025. Fuel shipped from Mexico came to about 769,000 tonnes, down from about 1.42 million a year earlier.

Reuters reported (in Spanish) that Pemex crude exports fell 45% year on year in August to 275,737 barrels a day, as more Mexican crude stayed home for Mexican refineries.

Trade meets Wall Street

One listed company sits right in the middle of this flow. Chevron (NYSE: CVX) is PDVSA's main joint venture partner, and Reuters data put its exports from Venezuela at about 293,000 barrels a day in July, almost unchanged from June. In September, cargoes from the Chevron and PDVSA joint ventures held at about 283,000 barrels a day, practically unchanged, while the trading houses' volumes moved around them. We name Chevron from those public reports only, never from our shipment records.

The share price was just as calm in September. Chevron closed at $206.14 on August 31, 2026, and at $204.21 on September 30, 2026, down 0.9% for the month (Yahoo Finance daily closes, retrieved 2026-10-20).

Over a longer window the picture is energy-wide. From the week of September 29, 2025 to October 20, 2026, Chevron rose 47.0%. The Energy Select Sector SPDR Fund (NYSE Arca: XLE) rose 52.9% and the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSE Arca: SPY) 14.9% over the same dates. In September itself, XLE fell 3.8% and SPY 0.6%. These are price changes from closes not adjusted for dividends, not total returns.

Chevron moved with energy stocks, not with our tankers. We are not saying the Venezuelan cargoes moved the share price; many things drive an oil major's stock, and energy shares rose together. Not investment advice.

So who replaced Iraq?

Venezuela did, by weight, while Mexico sent less. The swap is observed: Iraq went from 2.33 million tonnes in the first nine months of 2025 to nothing from June 2026, and Venezuela went from 1.77 million to 6.75 million tonnes over the same months. The reasons come from public reporting: the January supply pact, the Hormuz closure, and Mexico refining more of its own crude. How long it lasts is not something the data can tell us yet.

What to watch

• Early November 2026: the Census Bureau releases official September trade. If the shipment signal holds, Venezuela should show well above September 2025 (a forecast, not a finding).
• First days of November 2026: Reuters' tanker data for October Venezuelan exports. Watch U.S.-bound loadings against the 629,000 barrels a day of September.
• Our November 2026 edition: October arrivals from Venezuela. A return toward 1 million tonnes would say September was timing; another drop would point to freight and discounts.
• Strait of Hormuz: a sustained reopening should bring cargoes shipped from Iraq back into U.S. lading records.
• Chevron's next quarterly results: any comment on Venezuelan volumes, read alongside the joint ventures' roughly 283,000 barrels a day in September.

Sources

Every link on this page passed the verification gate (live article, date in window, quote found, archived). Tier 1: Bloomberg, WSJ, Reuters, FT. Tier 2: other highly relevant sources (trade press, government, company releases, local press).

Tier 1

No Tier 1 source on this page.

Tier 2

• Tier 2 Shafaq News. US imports 6K bpd of Iraqi crude after seven-week gap. 2026-08-23 archive
• Tier 2 BOE Report. Venezuela’s oil exports fell slightly in July, cargoes to US rose. 2026-08-03 archive
• Tier 2 GBM Media. Exportaciones petroleras de Venezuela cayeron a 1,08 millones de barriles diarios en septiembre: datos. 2026-10-01 archive
• Tier 2 E-Aduana. Exportaciones de petróleo de Venezuela caen 9% en septiembre por alza del flete marítimo. 2026-10-07 archive
• Tier 2 GBM Media. Exportaciones de crudo de Pemex caen un 45% en agosto, sube producción de gasolinas y diésel. 2026-09-30 archive