Venezuela on Thursday authorized two very large crude carriers (VLCC) to set sail for China, according to two sources familiar with Venezuela's oil export operations, which would be only the second and third supertankers to depart the country since the U.S. seized a ship carrying Venezuelan oil last week.
The U.S. has said it would not allow vessels under sanction to leave Venezuelan waters. The departing tankers, each carrying around 1.9 million barrels of Venezuelan Merey heavy crude according to internal documents from state company PDVSA, are not on the U.S. current sanctions list.
The ships plan to navigate with their tracking transponders switched off from Venezuela's main oil port of Jose, one of the sources said. One of them had already sailed away from Jose's anchorage, where many loaded vessels have been waiting for instructions to depart since the U.S. seized the ship last week, monitoring service TankerTrackers.com said after analyzing Thursday's satellite images.
Both tankers have been carrying Venezuelan oil in recent years, according to the PDVSA internal documents.
Many vessels that provide false location data to disguise their real position while transporting Iranian, Russian or Venezuelan oil are not under U.S. sanctions. However, they are part of the so-called "shadow fleet" of ships that are typically unregulated by Western insurers and maritime service providers.
The shadow fleet is considered exposed to possible punitive measures from the U.S., shipping analysts have said. In the case of Venezuela, Washington has said it is only targeting vessels under U.S. sanctions as part of a "blockade" announced by President Donald Trump this week.
Of 75 oil tankers currently in Venezuela that are part of a "shadow fleet" of ships that typically navigate with transponders off to disguise their locations, around 38 have been sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury, according to data from TankerTrackers.com, updated this week. Of those, at least 15 are loaded with crude and fuel, it added.
PDVSA on Wednesday resumed loading crude and fuel cargoes after suspending operations at terminals on Sunday due to a cyberattack, although most exports have remained on hold due to the U.S. blockage threat.
"The blockade announcement caught the company by surprise," said a PDVSA source, who declined to be identified. "We have had a lot of meetings with customers since, and most of them are willing to take their cargoes out if there is any guarantee that unsanctioned vessel will not be targeted."
Venezuela's crude exports have fallen sharply from the more than 900,000 barrels per day it shipped in November since the U.S. ship seizure.
U.S. oil major Chevron, which has continued to ship Venezuelan crude under a U.S. authorization, exported a crude cargo on Thursday bound for the U.S., LSEG data showed.
Chevron said this week its operations in Venezuela continue without disruption, without providing details. Venezuela's government called Trump's blockade a "grotesque threat" in a statement on Tuesday, saying it violates international law, free commerce and the right of free navigation.
(Reuters - Reporting by Aizhu Chen, Marianna Parraga and Reuters staff; editing by Nathan Crooks, David Gregorio and Nick Zieminski)