Imagery Image Shows First Venezuelan Oil Ship Confiscated by US is Currently Off Texas.
US personnel roped onto the deck of the Skipper on 10 December.
Satellite imagery and ship tracking information has confirmed that the oil tanker named Skipper – the first vessel seized by the US for allegedly transporting embargoed oil from the Venezuelan regime – is currently off the coast of Texas.
Vantor orbital photographs dated 21 December indicates the ship is near Galveston, while Automatic Identification System vessel-tracking feeds from MarineTraffic presently places the vessel about 50 miles offshore.
The tanker Skipper was seized by American officials on 10 December and has been sanctioned by multiple nations. At the time it was intercepted, it was incorrectly sailing under the flag of the nation of Guyana.
This seizure was followed by the interception of a second tanker, the Centuries. This ship – in contrast to the first vessel – was not under official restrictions when it was taken into US custody.
US authorities are now targeting a third vessel, which has been named by the maritime risk group Vanguard as the Bella 1 tanker. President Donald Trump stated recently that “we’ll end up getting it”.
Writing on the social media platform 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 “another 28 to 35 days of fuel left unless her velocity drops”.
The monitoring service added the vessel is “probably heading in a southeasterly direction towards South Africa”.