U.S. Coast Guard Engages in High-Stakes Chase of Oil Tanker Near Venezuelan Waters

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The US Coast Guard is pursuing an oil tanker in international waters near Venezuela, officials said on Sunday, in what would be the second such operation in two days and the third 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 told Reuters news agency that the tanker was under sanctions, but added that it had not been boarded so far and that interceptions can take different forms — including by sailing or flying close to vessels of concern.

Officials, preferring to remain unnamed, have not disclosed the precise whereabouts of the operation nor identified the vessel under pursuit. However, British maritime risk management firm Vanguard, in conjunction with a U.S. maritime security source, has pinpointed the ship as the Bella 1. This crude oil carrier is listed under the U.S. Treasury Department’s sanctions.

Bella 1 was empty when it was approaching Venezuela on Sunday local time, according to TankerTrackers.com, an online service monitoring oil shipments and storage.

In 2021, the Bella 1 facilitated the transport of Venezuelan oil to China, as indicated by internal records from the state-owned company PDVSA. The ship has also been previously involved in transporting Iranian crude, according to data from a vessel monitoring service.

Alongside the report, a nearly eight-minute video has been circulated, featuring aerial footage of a helicopter closely hovering above the deck of a substantial tanker navigating the sea.

The US “apprehended” an oil tanker off Venezuela on Saturday, a move Caracas deemed a “theft and kidnapping”, in the latest salvo of a pressure campaign by Washington.

It was the second time in two weeks that US forces have interdicted a tanker in the region, and comes days after President Donald Trump announced a blockade of “sanctioned oil vessels” heading to and leaving Venezuela.

“In a pre-dawn action early this morning on Dec. 20, the US Coast Guard with the support of the Department of War apprehended an oil tanker that was last docked in Venezuela,” US homeland security chief Kristi Noem said in a post on X.

For more, listen to the latest on Venezuela’s response, labeling the oil tanker seizure as an act of international piracy.

Caracas decried the seizure as theft and kidnapping, saying “those responsible for these serious events will answer to justice and to history for their criminal conduct.”

A post from the department homeland security identified the vessel as the Centuries and said it was “suspected of carrying oil subject to US sanctions”.

Centuries is a Chinese-owned, Panama-flagged oil tanker, according to TankerTrackers.

An Agence France-Presse review found that Centuries does not appear on the US treasury department’s list of sanctioned companies and individuals.

Could the tanker seizures impact oil prices?

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, claimed in a television 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 US broadcaster CBS.

“There’s just a couple of them, and they were black market ships.”

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

“We might see prices increasing modestly at the opening, considering market participants could see this as an escalation with more Venezuelan barrels at risk” because the tanker intercepted on Saturday was not under US sanctions, UBS analyst Giovanni Staunovo said.

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

The seizures could legitimise and encourage Ukraine to continue attacking Russian vessels and possibly encourage Europe to detain Moscow-linked dark fleet vessels as well, said Matias Togni, oil shipping analyst at NextBarrel.