United States President Donald Trump says the US has seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, ratcheting up tensions with the South American country in a move that has also raised oil prices.
"We've just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela, large tanker, very large, largest one ever, actually, and other things are happening," said Trump, who has been pressuring Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to step down.
Asked what would happen with the oil, Trump said: "We keep it, I guess."
In response, the Venezuelan government in a statement accused the US of "blatant theft" and described the seizure as "an act of international piracy". It said it would denounce the incident before international bodies.
Trump has repeatedly raised the possibility of US military intervention in Venezuela.
The seizure is the first of a Venezuelan oil cargo amid US sanctions that have been in force since 2019. It is also the Trump administration's first known action against a Venezuela-related tanker since the president ordered a massive military buildup in the region.
The US has already carried out several strikes against suspected drug vessels, killing over 80 people since September and raising concerns among lawmakers and legal experts.
US attorney general Pam Bondi posted on X that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Homeland Security and Coast Guard, along with support from the US military, carried out a seizure warrant for a crude tanker used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran.
Iran's embassy in Caracas condemned the action as a "grave violation of international laws and norms" in a post on X on Thursday.
A 45-second video posted by Bondi showed two helicopters approaching a vessel and armed individuals in camouflage rappelling onto it.
Trump administration officials did not name the vessel or disclose its location at the time of the seizure.
British maritime risk management group Vanguard said the very large crude carrier (VLCC) Skipper was believed to have been seized off Venezuela early on Wednesday. The US has imposed sanctions on the tanker for what it says was involvement in Iranian oil trading when the vessel was called the Adisa.
The Skipper left Venezuela's main oil port of Jose between December 4 and 5 after loading some 1.8 million barrels of Venezuela's Merey heavy crude.
It transferred about 200,000 barrels near Curacao to the Panama-flagged Neptune 6 bound for Cuba before the seizure, according to satellite information analysed by TankerTrackers.com and internal data from Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA.
Guyana's maritime authority said Skipper was falsely flying the country's flag. The vessel had transported Venezuelan oil to Asia between 2021 and 2022, the PDVSA data showed.
Oil futures rose following news of the seizure. After trading in negative territory, Brent crude futures LCOc1 rose 27 US cents (40 cents), or 0.4 per cent, to settle at US $62.21 ($93.54) a barrel.
Venezuela exported more than 900,000 barrels per day (bpd) of oil last month, the third-highest monthly average so far this year, as PDVSA imported more naphtha to dilute its extra-heavy oil output.
Even as Washington increased pressure on Maduro, Trump's administration had not previously moved to interfere with oil flows.
The seizure could signal intensifying efforts to go after Venezuela's oil, the country's main source of revenue.
Venezuela demands end to US intervention
Maduro has alleged that the US military build-up is aimed at overthrowing him and gaining control of the nation's oil resources, which are the world's largest crude reserves.
"From Venezuela, we ask and demand an end to the illegal and brutal interventionism of the United States government in Venezuela and in Latin America," he told supporters in Caracas.
Since early September, the Trump administration has carried out more than 20 strikes against suspected drug vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific. Experts say the strikes may be illegal.
There has been little or no proof made public that the boats are carrying drugs or that it was necessary to blow them out of the water rather than stop them, seize their cargo and question those on board.
Concerns about the attacks on the boats increased this month after reports that the commander overseeing one of the operations ordered a second strike that killed two survivors.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll published on Wednesday found that a broad swath of Americans oppose the US military's campaign of deadly strikes on the boats, including about one-fifth of Trump's Republicans.
In a sweeping strategy document published last week, Trump said his administration's foreign policy focus would be on reasserting its dominance in the Western Hemisphere.
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