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The United States is imposing sanctions and seizing a ship off the coast of Venezuela in international waters, three US officials told Reuters on Saturday.
This comes just days after President Donald Trump Announced a “blockade” of all sanctioned oil tankers Entering and leaving Venezuela.
it will mark For the second time in recent weeks The United States has seized a tanker off Venezuela and it comes amid a massive US military buildup in the region.
The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, did not say where the operation was taking place, but said the coast guard was in the lead.
Coast Guard and Pentagon referred questions white HouseWhich did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Venezuela’s oil ministry and state oil company PDVSA did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
“I am ordering a complete embargo on all sanctioned oil tankers going in and out of Venezuela,” Trump said Tuesday.
The days when the US military seized a sanctioned oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela last weekAn effective embargo has been imposed there, with ships carrying millions of barrels of oil stuck in Venezuelan waters rather than risk seizure.
Since the first seizure, Venezuelan crude oil exports have declined sharply.
While many ships carrying oil to Venezuela are subject to sanctions, other ships transporting the country’s oil and crude from Iran and Russia are not banned, and some companies, notably America’s Chevron, transport Venezuelan oil in their own authorized ships.
China is the biggest buyer of Venezuelan crude, accounting for about 4% of its imports, with December shipments likely to average more than 600,000 barrels a day, analysts said.
Currently, the oil market is well supplied and millions of barrels of oil are waiting to be unloaded onto tankers off the coast of China. If the embargo remains in place for some time, the loss of approximately one million barrels of crude oil supply per day is likely to send oil prices soaring.
Since the US imposed energy sanctions on Venezuela in 2019, traders and refiners buying oil from Venezuela have resorted to “shadow fleets” of tankers that hide their location and ships sanctioned to transport Iranian or Russian oil.
Shipping analysts have said dark or shadow fleets are subject to possible punitive measures from the US.
As of this week, more than 70 oil tankers in Venezuelan waters that are part of the shadow fleet are subject to sanctions by the US Treasury, according to data from TankerTrackers.com. It said at least 15 of them were filled with crude oil and fuel.
Trump’s pressure campaign on Maduro has included an increased military presence in the region and more than two dozen military attacks on ships in the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea near Venezuela, killing at least 100 people.
Trump has also said that US ground attacks on the South American country will begin soon.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has alleged that the US military build-up is aimed at overthrowing him and seizing control of the OPEC nation’s oil resources, which have the world’s largest crude reserves.