Workers aboard an Iranian tanker loaded with gasoline in Puerto Cabello, Venezuela, after its arrival on Monday.
Photo: venezuelan government/epa/ShutterstockWashington has disrupted planned Iranian fuel deliveries to Venezuela by threatening sanctions against shippers, U.S. officials said Wednesday, temporarily thwarting a burgeoning economic alliance between two of America’s biggest rivals.
Two Liberian-flagged, Greek-owned vessels loaded with Iranian oil products and headed to Venezuela halted their deliveries after the sanctions threat, U.S. officials said.
The two tankers—the Bering and the Bella—were expected to arrive in Venezuela in the wake of three Iranian tankers carrying gasoline that have reached the country, the most recent on Wednesday. Two other Iranian-owned tankers are also headed to Venezuela. The Venezuelan regime of Nicolás Maduro and the Islamic Republic, both U.S. sanctions targets, have described the oil shipments as a blow to the Trump administration, promoting the events on state media.
The two Greek-owned tankers would have been unable to get insurance and access to international banking if they had carried on, the U.S. officials said, deterrence they expect to help ward off other planned deliveries.
“We have been in contact with the shipowners, and they are under great risk for sanctions,” one senior administration official said, adding that being sanctioned likely would be an “out of business proposition” for the companies.
“Currently, the ships are not headed to Venezuela,” the official said, adding that they are near Cape Verde off the coast of Senegal and headed southwardly.
Liberia, where the two tankers are registered, pulled the vessels’ accreditation last week after the State Department’s Iran Action Group contacted the government about the matter, U.S. officials said. State Department officials then warned the owners of the tankers, two Greece-registered firms in Piraeus, that they faced U.S. sanctions and legal action if the tankers didn’t turn back, the U.S. officials said. Both vessels then abandoned the flotilla, according to tracking data and officials.
The U.S. effort follows a series of actions by the administration, including sanctions against shipping firms, a global diplomatic effort to deregister Iranian vessels, and general punitive warnings to the maritime industry.
According to ship-tracking websites FleetMon and MarineTraffic, both vessels loaded in an area of the Persian Gulf known for transshipments of Iranian oil last month. One of them gave its destination as Trinidad on May 4 before changing it to a “continent” a week later. Both vessels switched off their transponders while in the Mediterranean in early May and have been off radar since then.
A State Department spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about the threats to impose sanctions on the vessels. Venezuelan and Iranian officials didn’t respond to requests for comment.
A person answering the phone listed for the two companies—Vienna Ltd. and Palermo S.A.—in Piraeus declined to comment, saying the legal office would respond to the Journal’s queries.
Collectively, the seven vessels represent only a fraction of the gasoline and other oil products the Latin American nation must import because of a dearth in refining capacity, despite owning the world’s largest crude-oil reserves.
The U.S. has been considering other alternatives, such as blockading or getting allied nations through whose waters the tankers sailed to take charge of the vessels as sanctions violators, according to a senior Western diplomatic source and a U.S. official.
Trinidad and Tobago, the island nation off Venezuela’s coast, has been under pressure by both the U.S. and Venezuela over the tankers, according to the officials. The U.S. wants the country to use its jurisdiction over its territorial waters to prevent deliveries, these people say. That prompted Trinidad to ask Venezuela to ensure the Iranian tankers didn’t sail through its sea lanes, one of these people said. A spokeswoman at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Port of Spain declined to comment.
Venezuelan Minister of Petroleum Tareck El Aissami, right, visited the Iranian ship ‘Fortune’ on Monday after its arrival in Puerto Cabello.
Photo: venezuelan government/epa/ShutterstockU.S. officials said the strategy of deterrence—rather than armed confrontation—represents a workable compromise for the predicaments faced by the Trump administration. Washington wants to avoid a military escalation on America’s doorstep in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic, but it also intends to cut short Iran’s ambitions in the Caribbean.
These officials said Washington also didn’t see any political gain in spoiling a temporary reprieve for Venezuela’s gasoline-starved population, but wants to ensure the trade doesn’t become permanent. Iran is expected to attempt other deliveries to meet Venezuela’s fuel demand, especially as Russia and China, which have long supported Mr. Maduro, recently have taken a step back from full engagement, the Western diplomat said.
“It was obvious that the Trump administration wasn’t going to let this situation continue,” said Russ Dallen, a managing partner at the brokerage Caracas Capital Markets who closely follows Venezuela’s oil industry. “There is no way that the U.S. is going to allow a few gallons of gas to become a pipeline.”
Many U.S. officials have been reluctant to use U.S. naval forces, including its joint-narco-trafficking operations with allies in the region, to stop the Iranian vessels. The U.S. has sought to avoid an escalation of tensions after Washington and Tehran narrowly avoided a full military conflict following a U.S. strike that killed a top Iranian general, Qassem Soleimani, in January.
Instead, the U.S. has favored nonmilitary measures such as sanctions or legal action to confiscate the vessels if they stop at foreign ports, the officials said. The Western diplomatic official said Venezuela is in part planning to pay Iran back for the fuel with crude-oil exports, deliveries that the U.S. or allies could also then seize.
The U.S. and dozens of its allies have deemed Mr. Maduro illegitimate since a 2018 election was marred by fraud allegations. They back main opposition leader Juan Guaidó as the country’s legitimate president, though Mr. Maduro maintains control of the armed forces and most state institutions.
While the interrupted oil sales are a lucrative trade for Tehran, the regime in Caracas has been deepening ties with Iran since last month, when Mr. Maduro appointed Tareck El Aissami, a close ally, as Venezuela’s oil minister. Mr. El Aissami, whom the U.S. has designated as a narco trafficker, has strong connections in the Middle East, according to U.S. intelligence and law-enforcement officials.
Around the time Mr. El Aissami was appointed, Iran’s Mahan Air, on which the U.S. has imposed sanctions for carrying military personnel, weapons and cash for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, delivered engineers and equipment to refurbish a decrepit Venezuela refining complex, Iranian, Venezuelan and U.S. officials have said.
The flights returned to Tehran carrying gold and cash, some of the officials have said.
From the Archives
—Gordon Lubold contributed to this article.
Write to Benoit Faucon at benoit.faucon@wsj.com and Ian Talley at ian.talley@wsj.com
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