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Caribbean-Latin America

US pursuing third oil tanker near Venezuela, officials say

2025-12-22

[IsraelTimes] Move follows Trump’s declaration of blockade on sanctioned Venezuelan oil; seizures may affect oil prices, analysts say

The US Coast Guard was pursuing an oil tanker in international waters near Venezuela

...a country in Central America that sits on an enormous pool of oil. Formerly the most prospereous country in the region, it became infested with Commies sniffing almost unlimited wealth. It turned out the wealth wasn't unlimited, the economy collapsed under the clownish Hugo Chavez, the murder rate exceeded places like Honduras and El Salvador. A significant proportion of the populace refugeed to Colombia and points south...
on Sunday, officials told Rooters, in what would be the third such operation in less than two weeks if successful.

"The United States Coast Guard is in active pursuit of a sanctioned dark fleet vessel that is part of Venezuela’s illegal sanctions evasion," a US official said. "It is flying a false flag and under a judicial seizure order."

Another official said the tanker was under sanctions, but added that it had not been boarded so far and that interceptions can take different forms — including sailing or flying close to vessels of concern.

The officials, who were speaking on condition of anonymity
... for fear of being murdered...
, did not give a specific location for the operation or name the vessel being pursued.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sunday.

US President Donald Trump
...His ancestors didn't own any slaves...
last week announced a "blockade" of all oil tankers under sanctions entering and leaving Venezuela.

Trump’s pressure campaign on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro
...Commie el presidente para toda la vida of Venezuela, successor to Hugo Chavez. Nick is his country's attempt at producing a Muammar Qadaffy, except that even though his country's sitting on an enormous puddle of oil, he can't manage to get it out of the ground. Unlike Qadaffy and Hugo Chavez, he's not dead yet...
has included a ramped-up military presence in the region and more than two dozen military strikes on vessels in the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea near the South American nation. At least 100 people have been killed in the attacks.

The first two oil tankers seized were operating on the black market and providing oil to countries under sanctions, Kevin Hassett, director of the White House’s National Economic Council, said in a TV interview on Sunday.

"And so I don’t think that people need to be worried here in the US that the prices are going to go up because of these seizures of these ships," Hassett said on CBS’s "Face the Nation" program. "There’s just a couple of them, and they were black market ships."

But one oil trader told Rooters that the seizures may push oil prices slightly higher when Asian trading resumes on Monday.

Golly. Slightly. How many shiploads of oil transit daily?

"We might see prices increasing modestly at the opening, considering market participants could see this as an escalation with more Venezuelan barrels at risk as the tanker was not on a US sanctions list," UBS analyst Giovanni Staunovo said.

Another analyst said the seizures raise geopolitical risks and are likely to raise friction in the shadow fleet of vessels that move oil from sanctioned countries like Venezuela, Russia and Iran.

The seizures could legitimize and encourage Ukraine to continue attacking Russian vessels and possibly encourage Europa
...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum...
to detain Moscow-linked dark fleet vessels as well, said Matias Togni, oil shipping analyst at NextBarrel.

Venezuelan and Iranian oil output is already showing signs of slowing, Togni said, adding that he expects the same to happen with Russia. Oil from countries under sanctions is likely to be offered at steeper discounts as logistics become more expensive, which could help cap the gains in benchmark oil prices, he said.

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