The United States announced this Wednesday the seizure of two sanctioned oil tankers, one assaulted by military forces in the North Atlantic, which was flying the Russian flag, and another in the Caribbean, both in relation to the blockade of Venezuela.
The capture of the tanker in the Caribbean was announced by the Southern Command (Southcom), while the tanker in the North Atlantic was assaulted off Iceland, after days of pursuit, and was confirmed by the US European Command.
“The sanctioned and illicit blockade of Venezuelan oil remains in FULL FORCE – anywhere in the world,” declared Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth on the X network.
For years, the Treasury Department has maintained a list of tankers from countries such as Venezuela, Russia or Iran, which it updates regularly and which are susceptible to being seized, according to its own legislation.
An American multinational, Chevron, operates in Venezuela without problems, thanks to a special permit that exempts it from US sanctions on the Venezuelan oil industry.
“Under my control”
Operations suddenly accelerated with increasing pressure on Venezuela, starting in September.
The United States began by bombing alleged drug traffickers’ boats leaving the Venezuelan coast. The thirty attacks left more than one hundred dead.
In December, President Donald Trump announced the start of the oil blockade, which Caracas called interference. The seizures, President Nicolás Maduro then protested, are an act of “piracy.”
Maduro and his wife were captured on January 3 in a surprise military attack in the middle of the night in Caracas, an operation that has shaken the diplomatic scene in the region and around the world.
Since then, Trump has said that the United States will “rule” Venezuela and that American companies will control its oil — the world’s largest proven reserves.
The exploitation of crude oil must once again be open to American and foreign multinationals, Trump said after the military operation, but without further details.
The American president, who left the possible holding of elections in Venezuela very much in the background, has now made Venezuelan crude oil his main objective.
On Tuesday he assured that Venezuela’s interim authorities would deliver “between 30 and 50 MILLION barrels of oil” to his country.
“This oil will be sold at its market price, and that money will be under my control,” Trump said on his Truth Social network.
Revenue could represent more than $2 billion at current market prices.
This Wednesday, Energy Secretary Chris Wright asserted that the United States will control Venezuelan oil sales indefinitely.
“We are going to market the crude oil that comes out of Venezuela, first this stored oil that is dammed and then, indefinitely, from now on, we will sell the production that comes out of Venezuela on the market,” Wright said at an energy sector event organized by Goldman Sachs in Miami.
Venezuelan oil
The operation in the North Atlantic illustrates the complexities of the blockade of Venezuela and the opacity of the black oil market around the world
Russia denounced the assault on the ship. “In accordance with the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, freedom of navigation applies in international waters, and no State has the right to use force against vessels duly registered under the jurisdiction of other States,” the Russian Ministry of Transport said in a statement.
The tanker had been sanctioned since 2024 for its alleged links to Hezbollah and Iran and was headed to Venezuela.
He changed course, flag and name while fleeing the US military and Coast Guard in the Caribbean. It was renamed Sailor and flew the Russian flag.
The persecution reached the Icelandic coast. Russia sent a submarine to escort the empty tanker, apparently without success.
China, which until now received most of Venezuela’s oil, has also expressed its irritation at the blockade and military operations.
Venezuelan interim president Delcy Rodríguez, who took office on an interim basis after Maduro’s ouster, has vowed to cooperate with the United States amid fears that Trump may pursue broader regime change.
But it is not clear whether Rodríguez would agree to deliver crude oil, nor how this plan would work or what legal basis it would be based on.
Trump’s announcement led to a drop in global oil prices.
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