Imagery Data Reveals First Venezuelan Oil Ship Confiscated by American Authorities is Currently Off the Texas Coast.
American agents boarding the deck of the tanker Skipper on 10 December.
Satellite imagery and ship tracking information has verified that the oil tanker named Skipper – the first vessel apprehended by the US for reportedly transporting sanctioned crude from Venezuela – is now positioned near of the state of Texas.
Vantor orbital photographs from 21 December shows the ship is in the vicinity of the port of Galveston, while AIS vessel-tracking feeds from MarineTraffic presently positions the Skipper about 80km offshore.
The tanker Skipper was seized by US authorities on the tenth of December and has been blacklisted by several governments. When it was intercepted, it was falsely flying the ensign of the nation of Guyana.
This seizure was followed by the capture of a another tanker, the Centuries tanker. It – unlike the Skipper – was not under sanctions when it was brought under US custody.
US authorities are now pursuing a third such vessel, which has been identified by the maritime risk group Vanguard as the Bella 1. President Donald Trump said recently that “it will ultimately be secured”.
Writing on X, the maritime monitoring group said the vessel Bella 1 has been “in transit for over a month” and, at an average speed of 11 nautical miles per hour, may have “another 28 to 35 days of diesel left unless her speed decreases”.
The monitoring service added the tanker is “probably heading in a southeasterly direction towards the South African coast”.
