While the whole world is busy fighting coronavirus, the US is building up pressure on Venezuela. The White House finally got its hands on the so-called dark tankers, thanks to which Caracas circumvents American sanctions. What are “dark” tankers, what role do they play in financing the budget of Venezuela – and what can the United States do to fight them?
First, recall the essence of the matter.
In response to the reluctance of the Venezuelan people to support the pro-American coup, the United States imposed very severe sanctions against this country. Among other things, the State Oil Company of Venezuela – PDVSA, the largest employer in the country and the main “earner” of money in the Venezuelan budget, fell under these sanctions. And together with the company, its tankers also fell under sanctions – 34 vessels, which can now be used only for oil storage. Any port that receives such a tanker will immediately fall under US sanctions.
Tankers with incomprehensible owners, a “muddy” history, who came from nowhere and with oil coming from nowhere inside is a completely different matter. Such ships have chances to avoid US sanctions – as do the ports that accept them.
That is why since Washington began to sanction any company buying oil from Venezuela, a phenomenon has arisen around this country, which the Americans themselves called dark tankers – “dark” tankers. The dark ones, in the sense of hiding “in the information darkness” – are walking along a route with the Automatic Identification System (AIS) turned off. As a rule, these are vessels under convenient flags (for example, under the flag of Liberia), and some small company from a small country acts as a shipowner.
Blind game
The actions of the “dark” tankers look like this.
On the way to the Caribbean, such a ship “disappears” – turns off the AIS. Further, hiding among hundreds of large and small ships plowing the seas in the region, the tanker goes to Venezuela. Loaded with oil there, the ship leaves and turns on the AIS only when it moves far enough from the Venezuelan shores.
Further, according to American experts, Venezuelan oil tankers have three possible routes. The first is China, where crude oil is merged into the port terminal, for which China pays Venezuela with cash. The second option is India, which, with all its neutrality towards the United States and seemingly hostile relations with America, actually consumes Venezuelan oil. Americans accuse Reliance Industries of India from buying Venezuelan oil. So, one of the tankers, according to the Americans, was unloaded in the Indian port of Sikka, where this company owns the world’s largest oil refinery.
Also, a substantial part of oil is received in one form or another by Russia. However, the fact that a significant proportion of Venezuelan oil actually belongs to Russia is not a secret. And now literally – Rosneft, which had previously dominated the sales of Venezuelan oil, sold its assets in Venezuela to a company owned by the Russian government. So far, at low oil prices, this deal looks doubtful, but it is unlikely that such prices will last more or less significant time.
Of course, Americans track these tankers, albeit loosely, and more or less represent how they work. Moreover, the United States has many vassals and dependent countries in the region, and they are actively helping them with all the necessary information. The list of assistants includes not only the famous antagonist of Venezuela – Colombia, but also, for example, rather big Brazil, more than capable of tracking the movement of ships by sea.
However, in the end, the US goals – to block the export of oil from Venezuela – were not achieved.
The reaction was not long in coming. At the end of March, Trump ordered the US Navy to deploy large forces in the waters adjacent to the territorial waters of Venezuela. The Americans deployed warships and stated that these forces would fight drugs. True, statements immediately appeared in the American media that the President of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, was behind the sale of cocaine in the United States.
Sending warships to the shores of Venezuela was a clear gesture of pressure from Trump. Earlier, in January, the “littoral” warship Detroit invaded the territorial waters of Venezuela in the framework of the traditional American scenario of military provocation – the so-called doctrine of freedom of navigation, when the US warship enters the territorial waters of a provoked country, abusing the so-called peaceful law the passage provided for by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (which the United States, by the way, has not ratified).
Well, then there was a famous attempt to abduct Maduro himself. The left-wing press in Latin America claims the raid was inspired by the US government’s $ 15 million reward for catching Maduro.
But all this did not work out in the end, and now a new stage of pressure on Venezuela is beginning. This time, the Americans declared a hunt for “dark” tankers.
Pressure options
On May 14, the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry issued a statement according to which the US is “pursuing” tankers that provide oil to consumers from Venezuela. So far, we are not talking about military measures, such as the capture of ships at sea. The United States is quite able to complicate the life of shipowners who violate US sanctions. There is no problem for the Americans to track the movements of tankers carrying oil from Venezuela and make them “untouchable,” like the Venezuelan tankers used to be. And no shutdown of AIS will help here. Such tankers will not be allowed to enter any of the ports of countries that are at least somehow dependent on the United States, they simply will not be allowed to go there.
At the first stage, the United States can cut off part of shipowners by such measures and narrow the range of pursued vessels to tankers from countries such as Iran. These countries, on the one hand, are not afraid of the United States, and on the other, they are not part of the Western world, and tough actions are permissible in relation to them (from the American point of view).
But then power grabs may well begin.
And the Americans have experience in such matters. In the late 90s and early 2000s, they actively pursued tankers that exported Iraqi oil bypassing UN sanctions. During one of the raids, in February 2000, they seized the Russian tanker Volgoneft-147, whose crew was accused of transporting Iraqi oil. Oil was confiscated, and photos of “fur seals” joyfully posing with a “captured” Russian flag from a tanker on the deck of the Monterey missile cruiser still go on the Web. There is no reason to believe that something like this cannot happen with tankers that sell Venezuelan oil. Especially now that
American ships are right off the Venezuelan coast.
In the case of Iranian tankers, everything is complicated by the fact that they deliver oil products to Venezuela, which it now cannot produce in sufficient quantities – gasoline and diesel fuel. Iran (and, according to the Americans, Russia) also supplies Venezuela with the reagents necessary for high-quality oil refining.
Technically, a warship can easily capture a slow and slow tanker.
The special forces from the ship are loaded onto a pair of helicopters (any American destroyer or the latest Coast Guard ship of the Legends class has two helicopters on board), and while onboard machine guns keep the tanker’s bridge and crew on deck under the gun, the capture group descends from the second one. Americans did such things many times, and the personnel were well-prepared for them. Only an order is needed.
It is difficult to say how far the Americans will be ready to go in the blockade of Venezuela and its communications with the outside world, but so far there are no signs that they are ready to stop. And they have all the necessary forces and means, so as not to stop.