Satellite Data Reveals Initial Venezuela-Linked Oil Ship Confiscated by US is Now Near Texas.
US personnel roped onto the deck of the tanker Skipper on December 10th.
Satellite imagery and ship tracking information has verified that the crude carrier Skipper – the first vessel seized by the United States for allegedly transporting sanctioned oil from Venezuela – is now positioned near of the state of Texas.
Vantor satellite imagery dated 21 December shows the ship is in the vicinity of the port of Galveston, while Automatic Identification System ship-tracking feeds from MarineTraffic presently positions the Skipper about 80km from the coast.
The tanker Skipper was taken into custody by American officials on 10 December and has been sanctioned by several nations. When it was seized, it was falsely sailing under the ensign of the nation of Guyana.
This seizure was succeeded by the interception of a another tanker, the Centuries. This ship – unlike the Skipper – was not under official restrictions when it was brought under American control.
US authorities are currently pursuing a third such vessel, which has been identified by the maritime risk group Vanguard as the Bella 1. The US President said yesterday that “we’ll end up getting it”.
Writing on X, the TankerTrackers group noted the vessel Bella 1 has been “underway for over a month” and, at an average speed of 11 nautical miles per hour, may have “approximately a month of diesel remaining unless her speed decreases”.
The monitoring service added the vessel is “probably traveling in a southeasterly direction towards South Africa”.
