US Forces Seize Sanctioned Oil Tanker Off Venezuelan Coast
A senior Trump administration official referred to the craft as “a stateless vessel” that was last docked in Venezuela.
US forces intercepted and seized a sanctioned oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, marking a serious escalation of tensions between the two countries.
“We’ve just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela — large tanker, very large, largest one ever seized, actually,” President Donald Trump said at the White House. “And other things are happening.”
A senior Trump administration official referred to the craft as “a stateless vessel” that was last docked in Venezuela. Bloomberg News was first to report the seizure.
Oil futures rose on the news, with Brent crude settling up 0.4% in London.
A few hours later, Attorney General Pam Bondi posted a video on X showing heavily armed forces descending to the ship’s deck from a Black Hawk helicopter, in a standard commando-style tactic called “fast roping.”
“For multiple years, the oil tanker has been sanctioned by the United States due to its involvement in an illicit oil shipping network supporting foreign terrorist organizations,” she wrote.
It was unclear from the video whether the personnel involved were members of the Coast Guard or US special operations forces.
Venezuela in a statement labeled the seizure a “blatant theft” and an “act of piracy,” adding the country would defend its sovereignty and natural resources “with absolute determination”.
“The true reasons for the aggression against Venezuela have finally been revealed,” the statement read. “It was always about our natural resources, our oil.”
Oil exports
The US action may make it much harder for Venezuela to export its oil, as other shippers are now likely to be more reluctant to load its cargoes. Most Venezuelan oil goes to China, usually through intermediaries, at steep discounts owing to sanctions risk.
“The US seizing a Venezuelan tanker is a clear escalation from financial sanctions to physical interdiction — it raises the stakes for Caracas and anyone facilitating its exports,” said Jorge Leon, head of geopolitical analysis at Rystad Energy. “This kind of action adds a geopolitical floor to prices: Even modest volumes can move sentiment when the risk is about sea lanes and state-to-state escalation.”
The Trump administration has escalated pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, whom it has accused of presiding over a narcotrafficking operation. The Pentagon has conducted more than 20 strikes against purported drug-trafficking vessels in waters near Venezuela and Colombia, killing more than 80 suspects. President Donald Trump has suggested numerous times that the US could strike on land and that Maduro’s “days are numbered.”
The tanker is a massive ship known as a very large crude carrier, or VLCC, that’s among the biggest in the industry, with capacity to carry around two million barrels of oil, according to two of the people familiar with the matter. The US had concluded the vessel was bound for Cuba, the people said, though it would be unusual for a boat of that size to travel from Venezuela to Cuba, based on historical shipping patterns.
US officials have long suspected Maduro’s regime of selling sanctioned crude via Cuba illegally in order to benefit from the profits while making the sales harder to trace.
Deterrence
The US move is likely to deter others from shipping Venezuelan crude, according to Matthew Thomas, a partner at Blank Rome in Washington who specializes in international trade and maritime law. “Most mainstream tanker trade has been steering clear of Venezuela because of the sanctions and increasing tensions,” he said. “But even for marginal shippers and dark fleets the potential for asset seizure builds an extra layer of deterrence.”
The Maduro government has characterized US actions as a grab for Venezuela’s oil reserves, among the biggest in the world. The tanker seizure is coming to light on the same day María Corina Machado, who leads the Venezuelan opposition to Maduro, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
In recent months, Maduro has called on Venezuela’s citizens to unite against what he said were US threats and to enlist in the citizen militia. He has also deployed troops, ships, aircraft and drones to the border with Colombia, some states along the coast and an island.
Petroleos de Venezuela SA, the state oil company, works with a handful of international partners including Houston-based Chevron Corp. to drill in many parts of the country. Under the current arrangement, Chevron receives a percentage of the oil produced by its joint ventures with PDVSA. A license issued by the US Treasury exempts the US company from sanctions.
Chevron said its operations were not disrupted by the tanker seizure.
Earlier Wednesday, Chevron Chief Executive Officer Mike Wirth said in an interview with Bloomberg TV that his company is in discussions with the Trump administration about remaining in compliance with sanctions in Venezuela.
