Hemispheric securityU.S. “Monitoring” as Iran Sends Fuel Tankers to Venezuela in Defiance of Sanctions
As Iran sent three gasoline shipments to fuel-starved Venezuela in recent months in defiance of U.S. sanctions, the Biden administration apparently did nothing to stop the tankers, signaling a reticence to enforce the sanctions and a savviness by the anti-U.S. allies in evading them.
As Iran sent three gasoline shipments to fuel-starved Venezuela in recent months in defiance of U.S. sanctions, the Biden administration apparently did nothing to stop the tankers, signaling a reticence to enforce the sanctions and a savviness by the anti-U.S. allies in evading them.
Two National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC)-owned vessels, the Faxon and the Fortune, delivered several hundred thousand barrels of Iranian gasoline to the Venezuelan city of Puerto La Cruz at the end of January and beginning of February. The third NITC tanker, the Forest, delivered another 270,000 barrels of gasoline to the city of Puerto Cabello on Feb. 20.
The deliveries were confirmed by a variety of nongovernmental sources, including TankerTrackers.com, an online service that tracks global energy shipments using satellite imagery and maritime data and London-based energy markets news service Argus Media, which said it obtained shipping data and documents related to the Iranian tankers.
Further confirmation came from the Reuters news agency, which cited several unnamed people with knowledge of the Iranian shipments.
Iran began sending irregular gasoline shipments to Venezuela, its longtime anti-U.S. ally, last May to help Caracas manage domestic fuel shortages stemming from dilapidated refineries and government mismanagement in the major oil-producing nation. In exchange for the deliveries, Caracas has provided Tehran with gold, surplus Venezuelan jet fuel and other commodities, according to U.S. and Venezuelan officials and reports by Argus Media and Reuters citing shipping documents and knowledgeable sources, respectively.
The administration of former president Donald Trump, which had sanctioned both Iran and Venezuela, responded to Iran’s May and June gasoline shipments by seizing in August four tankers that U.S. officials said also were carrying Iranian gasoline to Venezuela, albeit under non-Iranian flags. But reports citing tanker-tracking services later showed that Iran managed to send three more gasoline shipments to Venezuela using NITC tankers in late September and early October, apparently without U.S. interference.
Asked by VOA Persian for its response to the three Iranian gasoline shipments to Venezuela in late January and early February, a U.S. State Department spokesperson said on March 24, “We are aware of reports of a Venezuelan-Iranian petroleum exchange and continue to monitor the situation.”
The spokesperson made no reference to any U.S. sanctions enforcement action in relation to the illicit shipments and made no direct response to a question about whether the Biden administration will follow Trump’s example by seizing future similar shipments.
