U.S. pursuing third oil tanker near Venezuela, officials say

The U.S. Coast ​Guard is pursuing an oil tanker in international waters near Venezuela, officials told Reuters on Sunday (December 21, 2025), ‌in what would be the second such operation this weekend 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 U.S. official said. “It is flying a false flag and under a judicial seizure order.”

Another official said 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.

The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, did not give a specific location for the operation ​or name the vessel being pursued. British maritime risk management group Vanguard, along with a U.S. maritime security ⁠source, identified the vessel as Bella 1, a very large crude oil carrier that was added last year to the sanctions list of the U.S. Treasury Department, which said the vessel has links to Iran.

Bella 1 was empty when it was approaching Venezuela on Sunday (December 21, 2025), according ​to TankerTrackers.com. The vessel had in 2021 ⁠provided transportation for Venezuela’s oil to China, according to internal documents from state-run oil company PDVSA. It had also previously carried Iranian crude, according to the vessel monitoring service.

Trump’s Pressure Campaign

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sunday (December 21, 2025).

U.S. President Donald Trump last week announced a “blockade” of all oil tankers ‌under sanctions entering and leaving Venezuela. Mr. Trump’s pressure campaign on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has included a ramped-up military ‌presence in the region and more than two dozen military strikes on vessels in the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea near the South American nation. At least 100 people have ‍been killed in the attacks.

The Skipper, a very large crude carrier and the first Venezuela-related vessel seized by the U.S. on December 10, reached the Galveston Offshore Lightering Area near Houston on Sunday (December 21, 2025). Very large crude carriers cannot transit ‍the Houston ship channel, as the waterway is not deep enough, and typically transfer the oil on board to smaller tankers at GOLA.

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, said in a television interview on Sunday (December 21, 2025).

“And so I don’t think that people need to be worried here in the U.S. that the prices are going to go up because of these seizures of these ships,” Mr. Hassett said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” program. “There’s just a couple of them, and they were black market ships.” But analysts said the new seizures may push oil prices slightly higher when ⁠Asian trading resumes on Monday (December 22, 2025).

“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 (December 21, 2025) was not under U.S. sanctions, UBS analyst Giovanni Staunovo said.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said on Wednesday (December 17, 2025) that the ⁠country’s oil trade will continue. But the new U.S. focus on oil tankers will raise geopolitical risks and probably hurt Venezuela’s oil revenue, analysts said.

The effects could be felt quickly as Venezuela’s export volumes fall significantly and oil storage tanks fill up faster, forcing the OPEC producer to cut output, said Francisco Monaldi, director of the Latin America Energy Program at Rice University’s Baker Institute.