The US military prepares to seize additional tankers carrying Venezuelan oil after capturing the Skipper this week, intensifying pressure on President Nicolas Maduro’s regime, sources confirmed to Reuters on Thursday.
This marks Washington’s first-ever interdiction of a Venezuela-bound oil shipment under sanctions imposed since 2019. The operation coincides with a major Caribbean military buildup as President Donald Trump pushes for Maduro’s removal.
Shipping Industry Scrambles
The aggressive move has alarmed shipowners and operators, prompting many to cancel planned voyages from Venezuelan waters immediately.
Further US interventions will likely target vessels transporting Venezuelan oil that previously carried sanctioned Iranian or Russian crude, sources warned anonymously. One trading executive described the chaos, “The cargoes just loaded and were about to start sailing to Asia.
Now the voyages are cancelled and tankers are waiting off the Venezuelan coast as it’s safer to do that.” The Skipper seizure alone halted three shipments totaling nearly 6 million barrels of Merey crude.
Consequently, Venezuela’s government condemned the action as “theft” and “an act of international piracy,” but legal experts disagree. Laurence Atkin-Teillet of Nottingham Law School stated plainly, “Because the US endorsed and sanctioned the capture, no one can consider it piracy. The term piracy in this context appears rhetorical or figurative, rather than a legal usage.”
However, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt defended the strategy firmly, “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.”
Shadow Fleet Under Fire
Furthermore, US authorities assembled a target list of aging tankers operating in Venezuela’s illicit “shadow fleet,” which often transports oil from multiple sanctioned nations to China. Forces monitor vessels in ports and at sea, waiting for them to enter international waters before boarding.
Moreover, the Treasury Department simultaneously sanctioned six supertankers and four Venezuelans, including three relatives of First Lady Cilia Flores, to cripple Maduro’s primary revenue source. However, port logistics complicate further seizures since these uninsured, obscurely owned ships face entry refusals.
Meanwhile, Maduro alleges the US military surge aims to steal Venezuela’s oil wealth, with analysts confirming that Washington’s goal was to strangle his regime’s finances through relentless maritime enforcement.
