Imagery Data Reveals First Venezuelan Oil Ship Seized by US is Currently Near the Texas Coast.
American agents boarding the vessel of the Skipper on December 10th.
Satellite imagery and ship tracking data has confirmed that the oil tanker Skipper – the initial vessel apprehended by the United States for allegedly carrying embargoed oil from Venezuela – is now positioned near of Texas.
Vantor orbital photographs dated 21 December indicates the tanker is near the port of Galveston, while Automatic Identification System ship-tracking feeds from a maritime data service presently places the Skipper about 50 miles from the coast.
The tanker Skipper was taken into custody by American officials on 10 December and has been blacklisted by several governments. When it was seized, it was incorrectly flying the ensign of the nation of Guyana.
This interception was succeeded by the interception of a second tanker, the Centuries. It – unlike the Skipper – was not under official restrictions when it was taken into US custody.
US authorities are currently targeting a third vessel, which has been named by the risk management group Vanguard as the Bella 1 tanker. The US President said yesterday that “we’ll end up getting it”.
Writing on X, the maritime monitoring group said the vessel Bella 1 has been “underway for over a month” and, at an typical pace of 11 nautical miles per hour, may have “approximately a month of fuel remaining unless her speed decreases”.
The group further stated the vessel is “probably traveling south-east towards the South African coast”.
