United States President Donald Trump has ordered a “blockade” of all sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela.
The move is Washington’s plan to intensify pressure on President Nicolas Maduro’s government by targeting its primary source of income.
The White House has already reportedly moved thousands of troops and nearly a dozen warships, including an aircraft carrier, into the region.
Venezuela’s government responded by rejecting what it described as Trump’s “grotesque threat”.
Oil prices rose more than 1% during Asian trading on Wednesday following the announcement.
The move follows the U.S. seizure of an oil tanker off the Venezuelan coast last week, which the administration said was transporting “sanction oil” from Venezuela and Iran.
The blockade threatens to deal a significant blow to Venezuela’s economy, which is heavily dependent on oil exports.
Much of the country’s crude is shipped via the so-called “dark fleet”, a global network of tankers that employ deceptive shipping practices to evade sanctions and move oil worldwide, generating revenue for sanctioned states such as Venezuela, Russia and Iran.
Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, sanctions imposed by the U.S. and European Union have driven an expansion of the dark fleet supporting Moscow’s oil sector.
However, tankers have been evading sanctions on Venezuelan and Iranian oil for decades by disguising their destinations, including through manipulation of systems that transmit vessel location and speed, according to The New York Times.
Reuters estimates the global dark fleet comprises more than 1,400 tankers, with over 920 sanctioned by the U.S., the UK or the European Union.
However, oil tracking firm TankerTrackers said that only about 40% of dark fleet ships serving Venezuela are under U.S. sanctions, placing them outside the immediate scope of Trump’s latest escalation.
TankerTrackers estimates that 38 vessels used to transport Venezuelan oil are currently under U.S. sanctions, with 26 considered “suitable export candidates” and 15 presently laden with crude.
If the U.S. succeeds in cutting off a significant share of Venezuela’s oil export revenue, the impact on the economy could be severe.
Venezuela held the world’s largest proven crude oil reserves in 2023 at roughly 303 billion barrels, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
The country exported more than 655,000 barrels per day in 2024, data from CEIC showed, with oil accounting for nearly 90% of Caracas’s export revenues.
