Imagery Data Reveals First Venezuelan Tanker Confiscated by American Authorities is Currently Off the Texas Coast.
US agents boarding the vessel of the Skipper on December 10th.
Orbital data and vessel monitoring information has verified that the crude carrier Skipper – the first vessel seized by the United States for allegedly carrying sanctioned crude from Venezuela – is currently 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 data from MarineTraffic currently places the Skipper about 80km from the coast.
The Skipper was taken into custody by US authorities on the tenth of December and has been blacklisted by several nations. At the time it was seized, it was incorrectly flying the flag of Guyana.
This interception was succeeded by the interception of a another oil vessel, the Centuries tanker. It – in contrast to the first vessel – was not yet under official restrictions when it was brought under American control.
US authorities are now targeting a third such ship, which has been named by the maritime risk group Vanguard as the Bella 1 tanker. President Donald Trump stated yesterday that “we’ll end up getting it”.
Writing on the social media platform X, the TankerTrackers group said the Bella 1 has been “in transit 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 velocity drops”.
The monitoring service added the tanker is “probably traveling in a southeasterly direction towards the South African coast”.
