US preparing to seize more tankers off Venezuela’s coast after first ship taken, sources say

HOUSTON/LONDON/WASHINGTON – The US is preparing to intercept more ships transporting Venezuelan oil following the seizure of a tanker this week, as it increases pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, six sources familiar with the matter said on Dec 11.

The seizure was the first interdiction of an oil cargo
or tanker from Venezuela, which has been under US sanctions since 2019. It came as the US executes a large-scale military build-up in the southern Caribbean and as US President Donald Trump pushes for Mr Maduro’s ouster.

The latest US action ‍has put shipowners, ​operators and maritime agencies involved in transporting Venezuelan crude on alert, with many reconsidering whether to sail from Venezuelan waters in the coming days as planned, shipping sources said.

Further ‍direct interventions by the US are expected in the coming weeks, targeting ships carrying Venezuelan oil that may also have transported oil from other countries targeted by US sanctions, such as Iran. This information is according to the sources familiar with the matter, who declined to be named owing to the sensitivity of the issue.

US assembles tanker target list

Venezuela’s ​state oil company PDVSA did not reply to a request for comment. Venezuela’s government this week said the US seizure constituted a “theft”.

Asked whether the Trump administration planned further ship seizures, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told reporters she would not speak about future actions but said the US would continue executing the President’s sanctions policies.

“We’re not going to stand by and watch sanctioned vessels sail the seas with black market oil, the proceeds of which will fuel narcoterrorism of rogue and illegitimate regimes around the world,” she said.

The ‍US has assembled a target list of several more sanctioned tankers for possible seizure, according to one of the people familiar with the matter.  

The US Justice Department and Homeland Security had been planning the seizures for months, according to two of the sources.

A reduction ​or halt in Venezuelan oil exports, the main generator of revenue for the Venezuelan government, would strain the Maduro government’s finances.

The ⁠US Treasury said on Dec 11 it imposed sanctions on six supertankers that, according to PDVSA’s internal documents and ship monitoring data, recently loaded crude in Venezuela. It also imposed sanctions on four Venezuelans, including three relatives of the country’s First Lady Cilia Flores.

It was not known whether the newly sanctioned ships were among those now targeted for interception.

Dec 10’s seizure comes after the US in recent months has carried out more than 20 strikes
against what it says are drug vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific, killing more than 80 people.

Experts say the strikes may be illegal extrajudicial attacks, while the US says it is protecting Americans from drug ​cartels it has branded as terrorist organisations.

Further ship seizures could be aimed at tightening the financial screws on Mr Maduro, according to a source briefed on US Venezuela policy. Mr Maduro has alleged that the US military build-up is aimed at overthrowing him and gaining control of the nation’s oil resources. Venezuela is a member of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

The new US tactic ‌focuses on the activities of what is called the “shadow fleet” of tankers that transports sanctioned oil to China, the ​largest buyer of crude from Venezuela and Iran. A single vessel will often make separate runs on behalf of Iran, Venezuela and Russia, the sources added. 

The seizure of the tanker, carrying the name Skipper, caused at least one shipper to temporarily suspend the voyages of three freshly loaded shipments totalling almost six million barrels of Venezuela’s flagship export-grade crude, Merey, sources said. 

“The cargoes were just loaded and were about to start sailing to Asia,” said a trading executive involved in dealing and shipping Venezuelan oil. “Now the voyages are cancelled and tankers are waiting off the Venezuelan coast as it’s safer to do that.” 

Surveillance of targets

US forces were monitoring tankers at sea and some vessels in Venezuelan ports, either being repaired or loaded, and waiting for them to sail into international waters before taking action, one of the sources said.

In the run-up to the seizure of Skipper, which was previously sanctioned for its oil trading with Iran, US forces had stepped up surveillance of waters close to Venezuela and neighbouring Guyana, another of the sources said. 

At the White House, Ms Leavitt said the seized vessel was expected to sail to a US port where the government ‍intends to seize its cargo of oil through a formal legal process.

The timing of further seizures would partly depend on how quickly arrangements could be made for ports to receive seized ships for unloading oil cargoes, one of the sources said.

​Many of the vessels in the shadow fleet that transport sanctioned oil are old, their ownership is opaque, and they sail without top-tier insurance coverage. That would make many ports reluctant to receive the vessels.

Another vessel, the Seahorse, which is under UK and European Union sanctions for its oil trading links with Russia, was monitored ​in November by a US warship and briefly detained before sailing into Venezuela, one of the sources said.

While the Venezuelan government described the US seizure as “an act of international piracy”, legal ‌specialists said it did not fall under such a definition under international law. 

“Because the capture was endorsed and sanctioned by the US, it cannot be considered piracy,” said Dr Laurence Atkin-Teillet, a specialist on piracy and the law of the sea at Britain’s Nottingham Law School. 

“The term piracy in this context appears to be rhetorical or figurative, rather than a legal usage,” she said. REUTERS