About 10 oil and fuel tankers have left Venezuela’s territorial waters since the beginning of the year, despite the US-imposed export blockade, Reuters reported, citing industry sources, documents and data from the TankerTrackers monitoring service.
All of the vessels are under sanctions, most of them sailing without a flag or valid safety documents. About half are supertankers that typically ship Venezuelan oil to China. These vessels have an estimated 12 million barrels of oil and fuel oil on board, according to TankerTrackers.
The final destinations of the tankers have not been disclosed. When they were loaded in December, they were targeted for deliveries to Asia, but were in Venezuelan waters for an extended period of time due to the blockade. According to Reuters sources, at least four supertankers were allowed by Venezuelan authorities to leave in “dark mode” – with satellite tracking systems switched off.
US President Donald Trump imposed a blockade on all sub-sanctioned tankers bound for Venezuela in mid-December. After Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro was detained by US troops on 3 January, Trump said the oil embargo remained in place, adding that the US could benefit from Venezuelan resources and US oil companies were interested in rebuilding the industry.