A US military helicopter flies over the Panama-flagged Centuries, which was intercepted by the US coastguard on Saturday [Handout/DHS via Reuters.
The United States is pursuing another oil tanker in international waters near Venezuela, a US official told Al Jazeera, as Washington intensifies a pressure campaign against the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
The operation on Sunday comes a day after the US coastguard seized its second vessel off the coast of Venezuela in two weeks, as part of a “blockade” ordered by US President Donald Trump.
The US official told Al Jazeera that the US coastguard “remains in active pursuit” of the vessel, which they described as being part of Venezuela’s dark fleet trying to evade Washington’s sanctions on the Latin American country’s vital oil sector.
The official added that the vessel was “flying a false flag” and was “under a judicial seizure order”.
The Reuters news agency, citing a US official, reported that the tanker was under sanctions, but added that it had not been boarded so far. The official told the agency that interceptions can take different forms, including sailing or flying close to vessels of concern.
The British maritime risk management group Vanguard identified the vessel as Bella 1, a very large crude oil carrier that was added last year to the sanctions list of the US Treasury Department, which said the vessel has links to Iran.
Bella 1 was empty when it was approaching Venezuela on Sunday, according to TankerTrackers.com.
Reuters, citing internal documents from Venezuela’s state-run oil company, PDVSA, reported that the vessel had, in 2021, provided transportation for Venezuela’s oil to China. The agency, citing a vessel monitoring service, also reported that the vessel had previously carried Iranian crude.
Critics have questioned the legality of the attacks, which have killed more than 100 people.
Venezuela denies any involvement in drug trafficking and insists that Washington is seeking to overthrow Maduro to seize the country’s oil reserves, which are the world’s largest.
It has condemned the US’s vessel seizures as acts of “international piracy”.
The White House said on Sunday that the first two oil tankers seized by the US were operating on the black market and were providing oil to countries under sanctions.
“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,” Kevin Hassett, the director of the White House’s National Economic Council said on CBS’s Face the Nation programme.
The second ship, which was seized on Saturday and identified as the Panama-flagged Centuries, was carrying some 1.8 million barrels of Venezuelan Merey crude oil bound for China.
Al Jazeera Heidi Zhou-Castro, reporting from Washington, DC, noted that Trump’s “total and complete blockade” applied to sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela, and said the US has not sanctioned the Centuries.
“The US also did not have a warrant for that ship, though a White House spokeswoman said the oil it was carrying is sanctioned because it comes from the Venezuelan state-owned oil company,” said Zhou-Castro
