A Greek-managed suezmax tanker laden with Venezuelan oil is sailing to a refinery in Sicily, despite Washington levying sanctions against vessels for doing similar trades.
Italian refiner Eni has chartered Delta Tankers’ 157,487-dwt Delta Tolmi (built 2010) to lift 1.06m barrels of crude from Jose on 12 June, according to cargo-data firm Kpler.
The ship is due to discharge the cargo at the Milazzo refinery — a joint venture between Eni and Kuwait Petroleum — on Friday, Kpler data shows.
VesselsValue’s trade data also suggests the tanker is transporting a Venezuelan cargo to the Italian island.
TradeWinds has approached Eni and Delta Tankers for comment.
In a bid to further choke off Venezuela’s oil exports, the US sanctioned half a dozen tankers managed by some companies in Greece and Cyprus last month for allegedly lifting petroleum cargoes from the Opec member state.
On 2 June, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (Ofac) blacklisted Dynacom Tankers Management’s 150,000-dwt Chios I (built 2017), Thenamaris’ 306,500-dwt Seahero (built 2006), NGM Energy’s 300,000-dwt Voyager I (built 2003), and Chemnav Navigation's 105,600-dwt Athens Voyager (built 2007).
Data from Kpler and VesselsValue suggested Thenamaris, Dynacom Tankers and NGM Energy operated seven of the 15 tankers that lifted crude from Venezuela in May.
Then, the US put Eurotankers’ 106,361-dwt Euroforce (built 2002) and Columbia Shipmanagement’s 105,850-dwt Delos Voyager (built 2003) on the sanctions list on 18 June.
But all six vessels have been delisted after some of their managers publicly stated that they would not be involved in any further Venezuelan tanker trade unless explicitly authorised by Washington.
Geoffrey Pyatt, the US ambassador to Greece, has reportedly suggested to the Union of Greek Shipowners (UGS) that any sanctions on Greek-managed vessels would be removed if their managers pledged to stay out of Venezuela.
In mid-June, the UGS said in a statement that it “committed to implementing US sanctions measures and would continue to urge its members to refrain from conducting any business with Venezuela until there is a change in regime”.
Few buyers
Over the past few years, the US has imposed a series of sanctions on Venezuela to drive out President Nicolas Maduro.
The recent Ofac actions have kept large quantities of Venezuelan oil at sea, with refineries apparently reluctant to take those cargoes over fears of drawing ire from Washington.
“[Some Venezuelan oil is] stranded and cannot find a buyer,” a trader said.
Of the 46.5m barrels of crude and petroleum products lifted from Venezuela in the second quarter, 32.6m barrels may still have not been discharged as of 2 July, according to Kpler.
Those were being carried by a total of 36 tankers, including nine VLCCs, eight suezmaxes, 13 aframaxes, one panamax and four MRs.
Some of them could have turned off their transponders and unloaded their cargoes in the dark.
