The move comes just days after US President Donald Trump announced a blockade of all sanctioned tankers entering and leaving Venezuela.
This is the second time in recent weeks that the US has seized an oil tanker near Venezuela and comes as the US is increasing its large military force in the region.
US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem confirmed that the US Coast Guard had seized the oil tanker. Earlier in the same day, three US officials revealed that the ship had been seized.
British maritime risk management company Vanguard said the seized ship was believed to be the Panama-flagged Centuries, which were intercepted east of Barbados in the Caribbean.
Jeremy Paner, a partner at Hughes Hubbard law firm in Washington DC, said the ship has not been sanctioned by the US.
The Centuries ship is carrying about 1.8 million barrels of Merey crude from Venezuela to China, according to insider documents from Venezuela's state oil company PDVSA, the seller of the oil.
The ship left the Venezuelan waters on December 17 after being briefly escorted by the Venezuelan Navy, according to the company's sources and satellite images obtained by tankerTrackers.com.
Raw oil on oil tankers has just been seized by the US by Satau Tijana Oil Trading, one of many intermediaries involved in PDVSA's oil sale transactions to independent Chinese refineries.
