U.S. targeting oil tankers as part of strategy to stymie global black market

The U.S.’s pursuit of oil tankers around Venezuela is part of a new legal strategy under the Trump administration to seize ships that transport black market oil around the world, according to Justice Department officials.

- Shelby Holliday, Dustin Volz & Costas Paris

The fresh approach has been seen in recent days by the Coast Guard’s pursuit of the Bella 1, a sanctioned oil tanker whose crew refused to be boarded on Sunday. The Bella 1 is the third tanker to be targeted after the U.S. took control of two other very large crude carriers, the Skipper and the Centuries.

Unlike the Skipper and the Centuries, which were full of nearly 2 million barrels of Venezuelan oil at the time the U.S. boarded them, analysts at Kpler, a shipping data and analytics provider, say the Bella 1 was likely empty when the U.S. began pursuing it. A few days after the Skipper was seized by the U.S., the Bella 1 initially made a U-turn away from Venezuela before turning back toward the country, the analysts say.

While the U.S. has previously targeted sanctioned oil, it is now increasingly focused on seizing ships that make up the so-called “ghost fleet” and serve the global black market for oil, the officials said.

Venezuela has called the U.S. actions blatant theft and an international act of piracy. It accused President Trump of seeking to seize Venezuelan oil and plunder the country’s energy resources.