Satellite Data Reveals Initial Venezuela-Linked Oil Ship Seized by US is Currently Off Texas.
American agents boarding the deck of the tanker Skipper on 10 December.
Satellite imagery and ship tracking information has verified that the oil tanker Skipper – the initial vessel seized by the United States for reportedly carrying embargoed oil from Venezuela – is currently positioned near of Texas.
A satellite firm's orbital photographs from 21 December indicates the tanker is near Galveston, while Automatic Identification System vessel-tracking feeds from MarineTraffic currently positions the vessel about 80km offshore.
The Skipper was taken into custody by US authorities on the tenth of December and has been blacklisted by multiple governments. At the time it was intercepted, it was falsely sailing under the flag of the nation of Guyana.
This seizure was followed by the interception of a second tanker, the Centuries tanker. This ship – in contrast to the Skipper – was not under official restrictions when it was taken into American control.
US authorities are now pursuing a third such ship, which has been named by the maritime risk group a risk firm as the Bella 1. President Donald Trump stated yesterday that “we’ll end up getting it”.
Writing on X, the maritime monitoring group noted the vessel Bella 1 has been “underway for over a month” and, at an typical pace of 11 nautical miles per hour, may have “approximately a month of diesel remaining unless her velocity drops”.
The monitoring service added the vessel is “likely traveling south-east towards the South African coast”.
