Three Iranian tankers carrying hundreds of thousands of barrels of fuel have entered Venezuelan territorial waters, and are preparing to make deliveries in the next few days. Iran’s Gen. Yahya Safavi confirmed that Venezuela paid in gold, which has already returned to Iran.
Selling fuel to Venezuela is in violation of US sanctions, but then so is buying Iranian fuel. The US has at times gone after the tankers and seized some, but in this case that has not happened, and the tankers seem likely to safely arrive in Venezuela.
The gasoline shipments are increasingly vital, because Venezuela’s state-run oil company produces oil that is not of the correct purity for its own refineries. Historically, this meant exporting their oil and importing other oil, but US attempts at regime change have shut down that trade.
The lack of fuel is a huge problem, and farm yields in Venezuela have plummeted. Iran’s supplies allow Venezuela to keep the economy limping along, though the US continues to make moves to limit this and tighten down on them even more.
One tanker of gasoline believed to be en route to Venezuela, the Alkimos, arrived in the US today, where its fuel will be seized and sold at auction. The ship was chartered by Panama’s Sea Energy, who deny that the fuel was ever going to Venezuela, and claim that it was bound for Aruba.
Seizing property in international waters is piracy. US “sanctions” are domestic laws that legalize piracy, denying free trade, seizing assets. All of these are illegal under international law.
We no longer use international law as foundation for international actions. We use term “rules based international order”. What are those rules? Any information on what they are? Who approved them? Who agreed to follow them?
Interestingly , US — particularly under Trump — is going back to the glory days if British mercantilism , eschewing free trade it championed since WWII.
All we now need is base the seamen’s pay on the value of the “capture”.
“Rules-based International Order” !!!
It’s a sad world that a simple delivery of fuel is a headline.
The US “seizures” were done by threats made against the captains and crews. They were not done by physical force, boarding with ship with weapons.
Iran can and has protected itself from this by careful selection of captains and crews. Some people are more vulnerable to intimidation than are others.
As for oil types and refineries, there are all sorts of both. The history of Venezuela is of huge production but only limited consumption, because the bulk of the population was kept so desperately poor. The oil was exported as crude to be refined as needed in other nation’s refineries, on Dutch owned islands just offshore and in Texas.
Venezuela had very limited use for its own refineries, and it had only the least expensive sort of refineries. After all, tankers otherwise return empty, so small loads of other quality oil are not a real transportation expense.
As Venezuela tried to share the wealth, its elite shut down what few refineries it had by taking all the operating capital with them when they decamped to the US as expats seeking US intervention to return them to power. It was thus a double whammy problem, in that they lost what little they had. They never had much, and it was never serving the population now requiring service.
These tankers are likely carrying dilutent for the Venezuelan refineries. Texas used to ship naphtha but that has been cut off. Venezuela’s crude needs 25% by volume of the diluent to be thin enough to pump on and off ships.
Recently Venezuela has been using gasoline for this which has resulted in shortages.
“Selling fuel to Venezuela is in violation of US sanctions”___The US sanctions are the violation of International Laws…!
Seize it, sell it, throw a party on the proceeds and dare anyone else to try that shit again