On December 24, according to the latest data from the maritime intelligence agency Kpler, about six crude oil tankers have left the coast of Venezuela in recent days. The move comes as the Trump administration maximizes efforts to cut off Venezuela's oil revenue by deploying warships to blockade the sea.
Since the blockades were tightened in mid-December, about 14 ships have pumped oil at Venezuelan ports, at least six of which are on the sanctions list.
However, monitoring has become difficult as many ships have adopted automatic location-off tactics, turning into "ghost ships" to avoid tracking.
Matt Smith, an oil analyst at Kpler, said that four recent tankers - including the Centuries, which were approached by US forces - had lost signal immediately upon receipt. However, satellite data still shows the two ships Star Twinkle 6 and Azure Voyager anchored near St. Petersburg and Aruba.
Mr. Smith said that the continued oil receipt of ships was partly due to overloaded Venezuela's onland warehouses, forcing them to push their goods onto ships as a backup floating warehouse.
On the US side, authorities have taken a tough stance when inspecting the Centuries in the Caribbean over the weekend.
Notably, although the ship was not on the embargo list, it was still blocked. This shows that the US is tightening its surroundings, ready to target any ship with suspicious signs instead of focusing only on the "blacklist" as before.
President Trump said the seized oil would not be returned but could be sold or added to the US national strategic reserve.
A noteworthy point in the data is that most of the ships leaving the port of Venezuela are heading towards the US, and at least half of them are leased by Chevron energy group. Chevron currently holds a special US license to exploit and export oil from the country, and they say all operations are in absolute compliance with the law.
In contrast to concerns about chaos, the global energy market remains quite calm. WTI crude oil prices have remained largely unchanged since the first oil tanker was stopped on December 10. The reason is that world supply is still abundant and Venezuela's crude oil currently accounts for less than 1% of total global supply.
Although many ships have turned around to avoid risks, data shows that there are still about 35 sanctioned oil ships gathering near the coast of Venezuela, waiting for opportunities to access goods.
