China gets jump on U.S. for Brazil’s oil
The United States wants it, but China is getting it.
Less than a month after President Obama visited Brazil in March to make a pitch for oil, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff was off to Beijing to sign oil contracts with two huge state-owned Chinese companies.
The deals are part of a growing oil relationship between the two countries that, thanks to a series of billion-dollar agreements, is giving China greater influence over Brazil’s oil frontier.
Chinese oil companies are pushing to meet mandatory expansion targets by inking deals across Africa and Latin America, but they are especially interested in Brazil.
“With the Lula and Carioca discoveries alone, Brazil added a possible 38 billion barrels of estimated recoverable oil,” said Luis Giusti, a former president of Venezuela’s state oil company, PDVSA, referring to the new Brazilian oil fields.
Maley's Energy Blog 
Refining heavy oil is problematic for a vast majority of refineries. It was not long ago that Venezuela had no major place to go with crude outside of TX & LA (along with St. Croix) where 12 refineries were configured with the proper process units to refine it efficiently and profitably.
Is China now building such units at its refineries yet?