US prepares to seize additional tankers near Venezuelan coast after first vessel taken, say sources

Six sources with knowledge of the situation said that the U.S. was preparing to intercept additional ships transporting Venezuelan crude oil after the seizure this week of a tanker. This is part and parcel of increasing pressure on Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro.

It was the first time that a Venezuelan oil tanker or cargo had been intercepted by U.S. authorities since 2019. The seizure came at a time when the U.S. is executing a massive military buildup on the southern Caribbean and as 'U.S. Donald Trump is pushing for Maduro to be ousted. Sources said that the latest U.S. actions have put shipowners and operators involved in shipping Venezuelan crude oil on alert. Many are now reconsidering whether they will continue to do so in the near future.

Sources familiar with the situation, who declined to name themselves due to the sensitive nature of the issue, expect the U.S. to continue to intervene directly in the weeks to come against ships transporting Venezuelan oil, which may have also transported oil from countries that are under U.S. sanction, like Iran.

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PDVSA, Venezuela's oil state company, did not respond to a comment request. Venezuela's government said this week that the U.S. seizure was a "theft."

When asked if the Trump administration intended to seize more ships, White House spokesperson Karoline leavitt said she wouldn't speak about future action but that the U.S. will continue implementing the president’s sanctions policies.

She said: "We won't stand by while sanctioned ships sail the oceans with black-market oil, whose proceeds will fuel the narcoterrorism and illegitimate governments around the globe."

According to a person familiar with the situation, the U.S. is preparing a list of additional sanctioned oil tankers that could be seized.

According to two people, the U.S. Justice Department (DoJ) and Homeland Security (HS) had planned the seizures for months.

The Maduro government would be financially strained if Venezuelan oil exports were to cease or reduce. They are the primary source of revenue for Venezuela.

Treasury Department announced on Thursday that it had imposed sanctions against six supertankers, which, according to PDVSA internal documents and data from ship monitoring, "recently loaded crude oil in Venezuela", and four Venezuelans including three relatives of Cilia Flores, the first lady of Venezuela. It is not known if the newly sanctioned vessels are among those that will be targeted for interception.

The seizure on Wednesday comes after the U.S. In recent months, the U.S. has conducted more than 20 airstrikes against what it claims are drug vessels in both the Caribbean and Pacific. More than 80 people have been killed. Experts claim that the strikes could be extrajudicial illegal attacks. The U.S., however, claims it is protecting Americans against drug cartels which it has labeled as terrorist organizations.

According to a U.S. Venezuelan policy source, further ship seizures may be used to tighten the financial screws against Maduro. Maduro claims that the U.S. buildup in military forces is aimed at toppling him and gaining control over the OPEC nation’s oil resources.

The U.S. is now focusing on what they call the "shadow fleet" of tankers, which transports oil sanctioned to China as the biggest buyer of crude from Venezuela or Iran. The sources said that a single vessel would often make separate trips for Iran, Venezuela, and Russia.

Sources said that the seizure by authorities of the Skipper tanker caused at least one shipper to suspend temporarily the voyages for three newly loaded shipments of Venezuela's flagship export grade Merey totaling nearly 6 million barrels.

A Venezuelan oil trader said, "The cargoes had just been loaded and they were about to sail to Asia." The voyages have been cancelled, and now tankers are waiting near the Venezuelan coast because it is safer.

Surveillance of Targets

One source said that U.S. forces are monitoring the tankers and vessels at sea, as well as those in Venezuelan ports being repaired or loaded. They will wait until they sail into international waters to take action.

Another source said that in the weeks leading up to the?seizure' of Skipper - which had been previously sanctioned due to its oil trade with Iran - U.S. forces increased surveillance of waters near Venezuela and the neighboring Guyana.

Leavitt, at the White House said that the vessel seized was expected to sail into a U.S. Port where the government plans to seize the oil cargo through a legal process.

One source said that the timing of future seizures will partly depend on how fast ports can receive seized vessels to?unload oil cargoes. The shadow fleet of vessels that transports sanctioned oil is largely comprised of old ships, whose ownership is obscure and who sail without insurance. Many ports would be reluctant to accept the vessels.

One source said that a U.S. Warship monitored and briefly detained a vessel called the Seahorse in November, because it was under UK and European Union sanctions for its oil trade links with Russia. The vessel then sailed into Venezuela.

Legal experts said that while the Venezuelan government called the U.S. seizure "an act international piracy," it didn't fall under this definition in international law.

Laurence Atkin-Teillet is a British specialist in piracy, law of the ocean and maritime terrorism.

The term "piracy" in this context seems to be a rhetorical or figurative usage, and not a legal one.

(source: Reuters)