Oil and Gas

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The incident marks the second time in recent weeks that the US has seized an oil tanker near Venezuela.

The United States has seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela in international waters, according to officials quoted by international news agencies.

The incident comes just days after US President Donald Trump announced a “blockade” of all sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela.

This also marks the second time in recent weeks that the US has seized a tanker near Venezuela and comes amid a large US military build-up in the region as President Donald Trump continues to ramp up pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

Three officials, who were speaking to the Reuters news agency on the condition of anonymity, did not say where the operation was taking place but added the Coast Guard was in the lead.

Two officials, speaking to The Associated Press news agency, also confirmed the operations. The action was described as a “consented boarding”, with the tanker stopping voluntarily and allowing US forces to board it, one official said.

Al Jazeera’s Heide Zhou-Castro said that there was no official confirmation from the US authorities on the operation.

“We are still waiting for confirmation from the White House and Pentagon on the details, including which ship, where it was located, and whether or not this ship was beneath the US sanctions,” she said.

More soon…

Singapore has reported a growing number of “rogue” or “shadow fleet” tankers operating off its shores in and around one of the world’s busiest maritime corridors.

According to Lloyd’s List Intelligence data cited by international maritime authorities, at least 27 such ships transited the Singapore Strait in early December, with another 130 clustered nearby around Indonesia’s Riau Archipelago.

While traffic through the strait remains dense and appears outwardly routine – more than 80,000 vessels pass through it each year – ship-spotters and analysts say the profile of some of the ships using these waters has recently changed.

Why are so many ‘rogue’ tankers appearing near Singapore?

Conflict in Ukraine and the Middle East has sparked a surge in Western sanctions on oil exports from countries such as Russia and Iran. The European Commission and the United States Trump administration have both recently renewed or extended sanctions against Venezuelan oil, as well.

As a result, a parallel, unofficial maritime network has emerged to keep sanctioned oil moving.

The Singapore Strait is a vital artery for global maritime trade, carrying about one-third of the world’s traded goods at some point along their journeys. For tankers at sea, it is almost unavoidable – the strait is a natural gateway between the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea, also a busy trade artery.

The Maritime and Port Authority monitors vessel movements within Singaporean waters. But international law limits what action it can take once ships move into the high seas – in effect, international waters – allowing shadow fleets to thrive in regulatory grey zones.

In recent weeks, suspect shipping activity has been noted just beyond Singapore’s territorial waters – roughly 22.2 kilometres from its coast – in international waters, just outside of the city state’s law enforcement reach.

What are ‘shadow fleets’ and how do they avoid sanctions?

As a result of record sanctions by Western governments in recent years over Russia’s war in Ukraine, Iran’s nuclear programme and, most recently, United States President Donald Trump’s campaign against Venezuela, the number of falsely flagged ships globally has more than doubled this year to more than 450, most of them tankers, according to the International Maritime Organization database.

All vessels at sea are required to fly a flag showing the legal jurisdiction governing their operations in international waters. The body which grants ship nationalities is the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

A shadow ship, or “ghost” ship, is typically an ageing vessel with obscure ownership. These vessels frequently change flags – for instance, when the US seized the tanker, Skipper, off the coast of Venezuela earlier this month, the government of Guyana, Venezuela’s neighbour, said it was “falsely flying the Guyana flag”, and clarified that it was not registered in the country.

Operators of shadow ships also falsify registration details, broadcast false geo-location codes, or even switch off tracking systems altogether to evade detection and skirt UNCLOS laws.

These vessels typically carry sanctioned oil and other restricted goods such as military equipment. They often conduct risky ship-to-ship transfers of cargo under the cover of night to avoid detection. This can create serious safety and environmental risks.

Additionally, most of the tankers are owned by shell companies in jurisdictions such as Dubai, where rapid buying and selling by anonymous or newly formed firms can take place, making it even harder to trace their origins.

Jennifer Parker, a specialist in maritime law at Australia’s University of New South Wales, said the increasing number of shadow fleets presents a “real challenge”.

Parker told Al Jazeera that “finding out who owns them and who insures them has been incredibly difficult because of the [murky] paper trail around them”.

She added that “often they would do what is called bunkering, which is the process of transferring fuel at sea between ships. So that makes it hard to track where that ship has actually come from and where that oil has come from.”

She added: “Sometimes, what they do is actually mix oil, so you will have a legitimate ship that will do a ship-to-ship transfer at sea with a shadow fleet and they will mix the oil so it becomes hard to really trace where that oil has come from … to avoid sanctions.”

What sort of problems do these tankers cause?

When ageing, uninsured vessels are involved in accidents, it can lead to environmental disasters like oil spills.

According to Bunkerspot, a specialist maritime publication, a shadow tanker spill, which can cause enormous damage to water, wildlife and local coastlines, can cost up to $1.6bn in response and cleanup alone.

Last December, Russian authorities scrambled to contain an oil spill in the Kerch Strait caused by two 50-year-old tankers which had been damaged during a heavy weekend storm. The scale of the environmental damage and the associated cleanup costs remain unclear.

In addition to vessel collisions, they can cause environmental damage through chemical leaks and illegal waste dumping.

Who uses shadow fleets the most?

Russia is the primary beneficiary of ghost fleet trading. Moscow has largely maintained its oil exports despite Western sanctions, ensuring steady revenue for its war in Ukraine. Though not to the same extent, Iran and Venezuela also sell fossil fuels using ghost fleets.

China and India, currently the largest buyers of Russian crude, benefit from steep discounts, often purchasing oil well below the Western-imposed $60 per barrel price cap, which was imposed in December 2022 following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Tracking by S&P Global and Ukrainian intelligence shows that Russia relied heavily on its shadow tanker fleet in 2025. India has been the main destination, importing about 5.4 million tonnes (or 55 percent of Russian crude oil sales via shadow tankers) between January and September.

China has taken a smaller but still significant share of about 15 percent. Overall, most Russian seaborne crude now moves outside Group of Seven (G7)-compliant shipping, underscoring the shadow fleet’s central role in this trade.

What actions have governments taken against shadow fleets?

To avoid enforcement of sanctions, many shadow tankers have moved out of major shipping lanes. In part, this is down to European authorities now requiring physical inspections during ship-to-ship transfers, making it riskier for these vessels to operate on conventional routes.

For instance, Denmark, Sweden, Poland, Finland and Estonia recently began carrying out insurance checks on tankers transiting the Gulf of Finland and the waters between Sweden and Denmark. This is aimed at ensuring compliance with 2022 sanctions on Russian oil.

Meanwhile, in July 2025, the United Kingdom imposed measures – such as restrictions on access to UK ports, insurance and financial services – on 135 shadow fleet vessels and two linked firms, aiming to reduce Russia’s shipping capacity and cut its energy earnings.

In the US, President Donald Trump has warned that comparable measures will follow if Russia refuses to agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine, raising the prospect of closer transatlantic coordination with the UK and Europe against shadow fleets.

BP has tapped Woodside Energy’s Meg O’Neill as its next CEO, its first external hire for the post in more than a century and the first woman to lead a top-five oil major as the firm pivots back to fossil fuels.

O’Neill, an Exxon veteran, will take over in April following the abrupt departure of Murray Auchincloss, the second CEO change in just over two years as the British oil major strives to improve its profitability and share performance, which for years has lagged competitors like Exxon.

The company embarked on a major strategy shift earlier this year, slashing billions in planned renewable energy initiatives and shifting its focus back to traditional oil and gas. BP has pledged to divest $20bn in assets by 2027, including its Castrol lubricants unit, and reduce debt and costs.

“Progress has been made in recent years, but increased rigour and diligence are required to make the necessary transformative changes to maximise value for our shareholders,” new BP Chair Albert Manifold said in a statement.

When Manifold took up his post in October, he emphasised the need for a deeper reshaping of BP’s portfolio to increase profitability and faced pressure from activist investor Elliott Investment Management, one of BP’s largest shareholders, which called for him to urgently address the company’s shortcomings.

Elliott saw the change of CEO as a sign of BP’s willingness to act swiftly to deliver cost cuts and divestments, a person familiar with the situation said.

An external change

O’Neill, a 55-year-old American from Boulder, Colorado, and the first openly gay woman to helm a FTSE 100 company, headed Woodside since 2021, having previously spent 23 years at Exxon.

Under O’Neill’s leadership, Woodside merged with BHP Group’s petroleum arm to create a top 10 global independent oil and gas producer valued at $40bn and doubled Woodside’s oil and gas production.

The acquisition took the company to the US, where it embarked on a major Louisiana liquefied natural gas project, which it is progressing in an LNG market braced for oversupply.

BP spent more than 40 percent of its $16.2bn investment budget in the United States last year and plans to boost its US output to 1 million barrels of oil equivalent per day by the end of the decade.

Markets react

Woodside shares fell as much as 2.9 percent after news of O’Neill’s departure. At BP, shares were up 0.3 percent, compared with a broader index of European energy companies.

Like BP, Woodside shares have underperformed rivals. In absolute terms, though, the stock has risen about 10 percent during O’Neill’s tenure.

BP’s executive vice president, Carol Howle, will serve as interim CEO. Auchincloss, 55, will step down on Thursday and serve in an advisory role until December 2026.

BP said O’Neill’s appointment was part of its long-term succession planning, though it had not publicly announced a search process.

Auchincloss became CEO in 2024, taking over from Bernard Looney, who was fired after lying to the board about personal relationships with colleagues.

After an ill-fated foray into renewables under Looney, BP has promised to increase profitability and cut costs while re-routing spending to focus on oil and gas, launching a review in August of how best to develop and monetise oil and gas production assets.

During BP’s third-quarter earnings call last month, the company did not give an update on the closely watched sale process for its Castrol lubricants unit, the centrepiece of its $20bn asset-sale drive to slash its debt pile.

“We question whether this is set to change BP’s thinking once again on key strategic initiatives – should they defer the sale of Castrol? We think yes. Should they cut the buyback to zero and repair the balance sheet further? We think yes,” said RBC analyst Biraj Borkhataria.

Woodside said in a separate statement that O’Neill was leaving immediately, and it had appointed executive Liz Westcott as acting CEO, while intending to announce a permanent appointment in the first quarter of 2026.

US President Donald Trump has said the US owns rights to Venezuelan oil and land. The claims follow the US seizure of Venezuelan oil and the declaration of a naval blockade. But is any of this true? Soraya Lennie explains.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced ‘the largest gas deal in Israel’s history’, worth around $35 billion, with Egypt. Cairo has been a vocal critic of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, but experts say the country is facing an energy crisis.

Is the United States orchestrating regime change in Venezuela? Could this spark an all-out war?

This week on UpFront, Marc Lamont Hill speaks to Alan McPherson, an author and history professor at Temple University who specialises in US-Latin American relations.

The US is continuing the largest military build-up in Latin America in decades and has seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela. US President Donald Trump has also threatened to attack Venezuela by land “very soon”, while the Pentagon continues to strike alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and Pacific. At least 87 people have been killed in what human rights groups have called extrajudicial killings and murder.

The Trump administration has made clear that it wants Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro out of power, and has thrown its support behind opposition figure and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Corina Machado. She supports foreign intervention and wants to privatise Venezuelan oil, leaving many to question how much the ideologies of US politicians and the interests of oil companies are driving the push for regime change inside Venezuela.

The Trump administration has imposed new sanctions on Venezuela, targeting three nephews of President Nicolas Maduro’s wife, Cilia Flores, as well as six crude oil tankers and shipping companies linked to them, as Washington steps up pressure on Caracas.

Two of the sanctioned nephews were previously convicted in the United States on drug trafficking charges before being released as part of a prisoner exchange.

The US is also targeting Venezuela’s oil sector by sanctioning a Panamanian businessman, Ramon Carretero Napolitano, whom it says facilitates the shipment of petroleum products on behalf of the Venezuelan government, along with several shipping companies.

The US Treasury Department said on Thursday that the measures include sanctions on six crude oil tankers it said have “engaged in deceptive and unsafe shipping practices and continue to provide financial resources that fuel Maduro’s corrupt narco-terrorist regime”.

Four of the tankers, including the 2002-built H Constance and the 2003-built Lattafa, are Panama-flagged, with the other two flagged by the Cook Islands and Hong Kong.

The vessels are supertankers that recently loaded crude in Venezuela, according to internal shipping documents from state oil company PDVSA.

‘An act of piracy’

In comments on Thursday night, Trump also repeated his threat to soon begin strikes on suspected narcotics shipments making their way via land from Venezuela to the US.

His remarks followed the US seizure of an oil tanker off Venezuela’s coast.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the US would take the tanker to a US port.

“The vessel will go to a US port, and the United States does intend to seize the oil,” Leavitt said during a news briefing. “However, there is a legal process for the seizure of that oil, and that legal process will be followed.”

Maduro condemned the seizure, calling it “an act of piracy against a merchant, commercial, civil and private vessel,” adding that “the ship was private, civilian and was carrying 1.9 million barrels of oil that they bought from Venezuela”.

He said the incident had “unmasked” Washington, arguing that the true motive behind the action was the seizure of Venezuelan oil.

“It is the oil they want to steal, and Venezuela will protect its oil,” Maduro added.

Maduro’s condemnation came as US officials emphasised that the latest sanctions also targeted figures close to the Venezuelan leader.

Maduro’s relatives targeted

Franqui Flores and Efrain Antonio Campo Flores, nephews of Venezuelan first lady Cilia Flores, were also sanctioned. The two became known as the “narco nephews” after their arrest in Haiti in 2015 during a US Drug Enforcement Administration sting.

They were convicted in 2016 on charges of attempting to carry out a multimillion-dollar cocaine deal and sentenced to 18 years in prison, before being released in a 2022 prisoner swap with Venezuela.

A third nephew, Carlos Erik Malpica Flores, was also targeted. US authorities allege he was involved in a corruption scheme at the state oil company.

Maduro and his government have denied links to criminal activity, saying the US is seeking regime change to gain control of Venezuela’s vast oil reserves.

Beyond the individuals targeted, the US is also preparing to intercept additional ships transporting Venezuelan oil, the Reuters news agency reported, citing sources.

Asked whether the Trump administration planned further ship seizures, White House spokesperson Leavitt told reporters she would not speak about future actions but said the US would continue executing the president’s sanctions policies.

“We’re not going to stand by and watch sanctioned vessels sail the seas with black market oil, the proceeds of which will fuel narcoterrorism of rogue and illegitimate regimes around the world,” she said on Thursday.

Wednesday’s seizure was the first of a Venezuelan oil cargo amid US sanctions that have been in force since 2019. The move sent oil prices higher and sharply escalated tensions between Washington and Caracas.

United States President Donald Trump has said that the US has seized a sanctioned oil tanker close to the coast of Venezuela, in a move that has caused oil prices to spike and further escalates tensions with Caracas.

“We’ve just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela, large tanker, very large, largest one ever, actually, and other things are happening,” Trump said on Wednesday.

The Venezuelan government called the move an act of “international piracy”, and “blatant theft”.

This comes as the US expands its military operations in the region, where it has been carrying out air strikes on at least 21 suspected drug-trafficking vessels since September. The Trump administration has provided no evidence that these boats were carrying drugs, however.

Here is what we know about the seizure of the Venezuelan tanker:

What happened?

The US said it intercepted and seized a large oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, marking the first operation of its kind in years.

The last comparable US military seizure of a foreign tanker occurred in 2014, when US Navy SEALs boarded the Morning Glory off Cyprus as Libyan rebels attempted to sell stolen crude oil.

The Trump administration did not identify the vessel or disclose the precise location of the operation.

However, Bloomberg reported that officials had described the ship as a “stateless vessel” and said it had been docked in Venezuela.

Soon after announcing the latest operation on Wednesday, US Attorney General Pam Bondi released a video showing two helicopters approaching a vessel and armed personnel in camouflage rappelling onto its deck.

“Today, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Homeland Security Investigations and the United States Coast Guard, with support from the Department of War, executed a seizure warrant for a crude oil tanker used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran,” Bondi said.

She added that “for multiple years, the oil tanker has been sanctioned by the United States due to its involvement in an illicit oil-shipping network supporting foreign terrorist organisations”.

Today, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Homeland Security Investigations, and the United States Coast Guard, with support from the Department of War, executed a seizure warrant for a crude oil tanker used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran. For multiple… pic.twitter.com/dNr0oAGl5x

— Attorney General Pamela Bondi (@AGPamBondi) December 10, 2025

Experts said the method of boarding demonstrated in the video is standard practice for US forces.

“The Navy, Coast Guard and special forces all have special training for this kind of mission, called visit, board, search, and seizure – or VBSS,” Mark Cancian, a retired Marine Corps colonel and senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Al Jazeera.

“It is routine, especially for the Coast Guard. The government said it was a Coast Guard force doing the seizure, though the helicopter looks like a Navy SH-60S.”

Which vessel was seized?

According to a Reuters report, British maritime risk firm Vanguard identified the crude carrier Skipper as the vessel seized early Wednesday off Venezuela’s coast.

MarineTraffic lists the Skipper as a very large crude carrier measuring 333m (1,093 feet) in length and 60m (197 feet) in width.

The tanker was sanctioned in 2022 for allegedly helping to transport oil for the Lebanese armed group, Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, and Iran’s Quds Force.

The Skipper departed Venezuela’s main oil terminal at Jose between December 4 and 5 after loading about 1.8 million barrels of Merey crude, a heavy, high-sulphur blend produced in Venezuela.

“I assume we’re going to keep the oil,” President Trump said on Wednesday.

Before the seizure, the tanker had transferred roughly 200,000 barrels near Curacao to the Panama-flagged Neptune 6, which was headed for Cuba, according to satellite data analysed by TankerTrackers.com.

According to shipping data from Venezuela’s state-owned oil and gas company Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), the vessel also transported Venezuelan crude to Asia in 2021 and 2022.

Where did the seizure take place?

The US said it seized the oil tanker in the Caribbean Sea.

US officials have said the action occurred near Venezuelan territorial waters, though they have not provided precise coordinates.

MarineTraffic data shows the vessel’s tracker still located in the Caribbean.

Is the US action legal?

Cancian noted that “seizing sanctioned items is common inside a country’s own territory. It is unusual in international waters”.

He added: “Russia has hundreds of sanctioned tankers sailing today, but they have not been boarded.”

Experts say it is unclear whether the seizure was legal, partly because many details about it have not been made public.

Still, the US could make use of various arguments to justify the seizure if needs be.

One is that the boat is regarded as stateless. Under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), ships need “a nationality”.

The government of Guyana, Venezuela’s neighbour, said the Skipper was “falsely flying the Guyana flag”, adding that it is not registered in the country.

If a vessel flies a flag it is not registered under, or refuses to show any flag at all, states have the “right of visit”, allowing their officials to stop and inspect the ship on the high seas – essentially meaning international waters.

If doubts about a ship’s nationality remain after checking its documents, a more extensive search can follow.

In previous enforcement actions against sanctioned ships, the US has seized not the ship itself but the oil on board. In 2020, it confiscated fuel from four tankers allegedly carrying Iranian oil to Venezuela.

US law also allows the Coast Guard, which carried out this operation, to conduct searches and seizures on the high seas in order to enforce US laws, stating that it “may make inquiries, examinations, inspections, searches, seizures, and arrests upon the high seas” to prevent and suppress violations.

But some legal experts argue that the US has overstepped, as it “has no jurisdiction to enforce unilateral sanctions on non-US persons outside its territory”, according to Francisco Rodriguez, a senior research fellow at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR).

Rodriguez said the US is relying on maritime rules for stateless vessels “as an entryway to justify enforcing US sanctions outside of US territory”.

“To the extent that the US is able to continue to do so, it could significantly increase the cost of doing business with Venezuela and precipitate a deepening of the country’s economic recession,” he warned in a CEPR article.

The US has no jurisdiction to enforce unilateral sanctions on non-US persons outside its territory. The seizure of ships in international waters to extraterritorially enforce US sanctions is a dangerous precedent and a violation of international law.

— Francisco Rodríguez (@frrodriguezc) December 10, 2025

How has Venezuela responded to the seizure?

Venezuela’s Foreign Ministry stated that “the true reasons for the prolonged aggression against Venezuela have finally been exposed”.

“It is not migration, it is not drug trafficking, it is not democracy, it is not human rights – it was always about our natural resources, our oil, our energy, the resources that belong exclusively to the Venezuelan people,” the statement said.

The ministry described the incident as an “act of piracy.”

The government added that it will appeal to “all” international bodies to denounce the incident and vowed to defend its sovereignty, natural resources, and national dignity with “absolute determination”.

“Venezuela will not allow any foreign power to attempt to take from the Venezuelan people what belongs to them by historical and constitutional right,” it said.

What are the potential consequences for Venezuela’s oil exports?

Experts say the seizure could produce short-term uncertainty for Venezuelan oil exports, largely because “this has been the first time [the United States has]… seized a shipment of Venezuelan oil”, Carlos Eduardo Pina, a Venezuelan political scientist, told Al Jazeera.

That may make shippers hesitate, though the broader impact is limited, Pina said, since “the US allows the Chevron company to continue extracting Venezuelan oil”, and US group Chevron holds a special waiver permitting it to produce and export crude despite wider sanctions.

Chevron, which operates joint ventures with PDVSA, said its operations in Venezuela remain normal and continue without disruption.

The US oil major, which is currently responsible for all Venezuelan crude exports to the US, increased shipments last month to 150,000 barrels per day (bopd), up from 128,000 bpd in October.

Inside Venezuela, Pina warned the move could spark financial panic, however: “It could instil fear, trigger a currency run… and worsen the humanitarian crisis.”

How will this affect US-Venezuela relations?

Diplomatically, Pina said he views the action as a political message to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, noting its timing – “the same day that [opposition leader] Maria Corina Machado was awarded the Nobel Prize” – and calling it “a gesture of strength… to remind that [the US is present in the Latin American region].”

Maduro has long argued that the Trump administration’s strikes on boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific are not, in fact, aimed at preventing drug running, but are part of a plan to effect regime change in Venezuela. Trump has authorised CIA operations in Venezuela and has given conflicting messages about whether he would consider a land invasion.

Analysts see this latest action as part of a broader strategy to pressure the Maduro government.

“This is certainly an escalation designed to put additional pressure on the Maduro regime, causing it to fracture internally or convincing Maduro to leave,” said Cancian.

“It is part of a series of US actions such as sending the Ford to the Caribbean, authorising the CIA to move against the Maduro regime, and conducting flybys with bombers and, recently, F-18s.”

Cancian added that the broader meaning of the operation depends on what comes next.

“The purpose also depends on whether the US seizes additional tankers,” he said. “In that case, this looks like a blockade of Venezuela. Because Venezuela depends so heavily on oil revenue, it could not withstand such a blockade for long.”

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