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Venezuelan oil exports have reportedly fallen sharply since the US seized a tanker this week and imposed fresh sanctions on shipping companies and vessels doing business with Caracas, according to shipping data, documents and maritime sources.
The US seizure of the Skipper tanker off Venezuela’s coast on Wednesday was the first US capture of Venezuelan oil cargo since sanctions were imposed in 2019 and marked a sharp escalation in rising tensions between the Trump administration and the government of Nicolás Maduro.
Since the seizure, only tankers chartered by US oil company Chevron have sailed into international waters carrying Venezuelan crude, the data reviewed by the Reuters news agency showed. Chevron has US government authorisation to operate through joint ventures in the country and export its oil to the US.
Other tankers that have loaded about 11m barrels of oil and fuel are stuck in Venezuelan waters, according to the sources and data seen by Reuters.
The US attorney general, Pam Bondi, said this week the Skipper was intercepted and retained under a seizure warrant, while Guyana’s maritime authority said it was falsely flying the country’s flag.
The tanker is now reportedly heading to Houston, where it will offload its cargo on to smaller ships. Washington is preparing to intercept more ships transporting Venezuelan oil, sources familiar with the matter said on Thursday, according to Reuters.
Venezuela has condemned the tanker seizure as “blatant theft” and “international piracy”, saying it would file complaints with international bodies. At the same time, Venezuelan lawmakers took a step to withdraw the country from the international criminal court, which is currently investigating alleged human rights abuses in the South American country.
After more than 20 US military strikes in the Caribbean and Pacific against alleged drug vessels this year, and a large-scale US military buildup in the southern Caribbean, relations between the US and Venezuela are at their most volatile point in years.
Nearly 90 people have been killed in the US strikes on suspected drug boats, alarming human rights advocates and stirring debate among US lawmakers as to the legality of the actions.
Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, spoke by phone with Maduro about “peace” in South America, the Brazilian presidency said on Friday.
Lula, one of Latin America’s most influential leaders, had not spoken to Maduro since Venezuela’s 2024 presidential election, the results of which Brazil – along with much of the international community – did not recognise.
The Trump administration does not recognise Maduro, in power since 2013, as Venezuela’s legitimate leader. Washington has signalled more seizures are planned as part of efforts to choke off sanctioned oil flows, and subsequently imposed new sanctions on three nephews of Maduro’s wife and six tankers linked to them.
Trump has also repeatedly floated the possibility of a US military intervention in Venezuela.
Maduro says the US is bent on regime change and wants to seize Venezuela’s oil reserves.
After slipping out of the country in secret to collect the Nobel peace prize, Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado on Friday promised Maduro would leave power “whether there is a negotiated changeover or not”. However, she vowed she was focused on a peaceful transition, and thanked Trump for his “decisive support.“
Machado defied a decade-long travel ban and a period in hiding to travel to Oslo on Thursday, noting that she would soon bring the Nobel peace prize back home to Venezuela.
With Reuters and Agence France-Presse
