Washington, December 12: The United States has seized a sanctioned oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, President Donald Trump said on Wednesday, a move that pushed oil prices higher and sharply escalated tensions with Caracas.
“We’ve just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela — large tanker, very large, largest one ever, actually — and other things are happening,” Trump said as he continued to pressure Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to step down. Asked about the fate of the cargo, Trump added: “We keep it, I guess.”
Venezuela’s government denounced the seizure as “blatant theft” and “an act of international piracy,” saying it would present the case before international bodies. Iran’s embassy in Caracas also condemned the action as a “grave violation of international laws and norms.”
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a post on X that the FBI, Homeland Security and the Coast Guard, with support from the U.S. military, executed a seizure warrant for a crude tanker used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran. A video she released showed two helicopters approaching a vessel as armed personnel in camouflage rappelled onto its deck.
U.S. officials did not disclose the name or precise location of the tanker when the operation occurred. But British maritime risk consultancy Vanguard said the vessel was believed to be the very large crude carrier (VLCC) Skipper, previously known as Adisa, which is under U.S. sanctions for alleged involvement in Iranian oil trading.
Satellite data analyzed by TankerTrackers.com and internal documents from Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA indicated the Skipper loaded about 1.8 million barrels of Merey heavy crude at the country’s main oil terminal of Jose between Dec. 4 and 5. Before its seizure, the vessel transferred about 200,000 barrels near Curacao to the Panama-flagged Neptune 6, bound for Cuba. Guyana’s maritime authority said the Skipper had been falsely flying its flag.
Oil futures, which had been trading lower earlier in the session, firmed on the news. Brent crude settled up 27 cents, or 0.4%, at $62.21 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate rose 21 cents, also 0.4%, to $58.46.
Venezuela exported more than 900,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude last month — its third-highest monthly average this year — as PDVSA boosted naphtha imports to dilute its extra-heavy oil. Still, the country has been forced to steeply discount shipments to China because of rising competition from sanctioned Russian and Iranian supplies.
“This is just yet another geopolitical/sanctions headwind hammering spot supply availability,” said Rory Johnston of Commodity Context. “Seizing this tanker further inflames those prompt supply concerns, but it doesn’t immediately change the situation fundamentally because these barrels were already going to be floating around for a while.”
Chevron, the only U.S. oil major still operating in Venezuela through a sanctions waiver, said its joint ventures with PDVSA were continuing normally. The company increased its shipments to the United States to 150,000 bpd in November, up from 128,000 bpd in October.
The tanker seizure comes as the Trump administration intensifies pressure on Maduro. Since early September, U.S. forces have carried out more than 20 strikes on suspected drug-smuggling vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific, killing more than 80 people. Legal experts and lawmakers have questioned the legality of the operations, citing a lack of public evidence that the targeted boats carried narcotics or posed an imminent threat.
Concerns grew this month after reports that a commander overseeing one attack ordered a second strike that killed two survivors. A Reuters/Ipsos poll published on Wednesday found broad U.S. opposition to the deadly maritime strikes, including from about one-fifth of Trump’s own Republican supporters.
In a strategy document released last week, Trump said his administration’s foreign policy would focus on reasserting U.S. dominance in the Western Hemisphere.
