The tanker captured by the United States off the coast of Venezuela this week was part of the Venezuelan regime’s efforts to support Cuba, according to documents and people linked to the Venezuelan oil industry.
The tanker, called Skipper, left Venezuela on Dec. 4, carrying nearly 2 million barrels of the country’s crude oil, according to internal data from Venezuela’s national oil company, known as PDVSA. The ship’s intended destination was the Cuban port of Matanzas, according to the data.
Two days after its departure, the Skipper unloaded a small fraction of its oil, about 50,000 barrels, onto another ship, called Neptune 6, which then headed north toward Cuba, according to maritime data company Kpler. After the transfer, the Skipper headed east toward Asia with the vast majority of oil on board, according to a U.S. official briefed on the matter.
Dictator Nicolás Maduro and his predecessor Hugo Chávez have for decades sent oil to Cuba at heavily subsidized prices, providing the island with a crucial, low-cost resource.
In return, the Cuban regime has sent tens of thousands of doctors, sports instructors and, increasingly, security professionals on missions to Venezuela over the years. This exchange took on particular significance as Maduro relied on Cuban bodyguards and counterintelligence agents to protect himself against the increased U.S. military presence in the Caribbean.
However, in recent years, only a fraction of the Venezuelan oil reserved for Cuba has actually reached the island, according to PDVSA documents and tanker tracking data.
Most of the oil destined for Cuba was sold back to China, the money providing much-needed hard currency for the Cuban regime, according to several close to the Venezuelan regime.
Some of this money was reportedly used by Cuban authorities to buy basic necessities, although the opacity of the country’s economy makes it difficult to estimate where this money ends up, how it is spent or how much goes to commercial intermediaries linked to the two regimes.
This Friday (12), Cuban authorities condemned the seizure of the tanker by the United States, describing it in a statement as an “act of piracy and maritime terrorism” that harms Cuba and its people.
“This action is part of the US escalation aimed at obstructing Venezuela’s legitimate right to freely use and exchange its natural resources with other countries, including the supply of hydrocarbons to Cuba,” the statement said.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The main person responsible for the flow of oil between Cuba and Venezuela is a Panamanian businessman named Ramón Carretero, who in recent years has become one of the largest traders of Venezuelan oil, according to data from PDVSA and sources close to the Venezuelan regime.
The U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Carretero on Thursday for “facilitating the transportation of petroleum products on behalf of the Venezuelan regime.” Carretero, through a legal representative, declined to comment on the decision. He did not respond to detailed questions for this article.
Carretero’s role as an economic intermediary between Cuba and Venezuela was first reported by Armando.info, a Venezuelan investigative media outlet.
Skipper, the seized tanker, was transporting oil contracted jointly by Cubametales, a Cuban state oil marketing company, and a marketing company linked to Carretero, according to PDVSA documents. In total, Carretero companies were responsible for a quarter of the oil allocated by PDVSA for export this year, according to the data.
Cubametales has won contracts to buy about 65,000 barrels per day of Venezuelan oil so far this year, an increase of 29% from 2024 and seven times from 2023, according to PDVSA documents. The U.S. Treasury imposed sanctions on Cubametales in 2019 for purchasing Venezuelan oil, a move that was part of the previous confrontation between Trump and Maduro during the Republican’s first term.
Venezuelan oil that arrives in Cuba produces electricity and provides fuel for planes and machines. But that’s not enough to prevent widespread power outages hitting the island amid a broader economic crisis.
The trip planned by the ship’s captain shows how, in concrete terms, Cuba benefits from Venezuela’s oil trade. Cubametales, a state-owned company, said the ship’s destination was Cuba, suggesting that all of the 1.1 million barrels allocated to the company were destined for the island.
However, the tanker ended up heading to China after unloading only a small portion of the oil in the Neptune 6 and sending it to Cuba, according to a person close to PDVSA.
Then, on Wednesday, as the Skipper was sailing east in international waters between the islands of Grenada and Trinidad, it encountered an American ambush.
Members of the US armed forces, wearing camouflage combat gear, rappelled from a helicopter to the deck of the tanker on Wednesday, according to a video released by the US government. The crew offered no resistance and US authorities said there were no casualties.
Trump administration officials said they would seek a warrant to seize the oil, valued at tens of millions of dollars, adding that the crew had agreed to sail the vessel under Coast Guard supervision to a U.S. port, likely Galveston, Texas.
The Trump administration and Venezuela’s opposition have long portrayed Maduro’s regime as a hub for U.S. adversaries, and Skipper’s dramatic seizure appeared aimed both at weakening Maduro’s alliances and cutting off his access to funds.
The story of Skipper’s travels highlights a larger, looser network that connects the energy industries of Venezuela, Cuba, Iran and Russia, the four U.S. adversaries that have been, to varying degrees, shut out of the formal global oil market by Washington’s sanctions.
The skipper’s crew of about 30 sailors was predominantly Russian, a U.S. official said.
Before transporting Venezuelan oil, the Skipper spent four years in Iran’s secret fleet, transporting Iranian oil to Syria and China, according to data from Kpler, a maritime data company, and a senior Iranian oil ministry official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Russia supplies Venezuela with large imports of naphtha, a light petroleum product that Venezuela uses to dilute its main crude, which is a sludge, and make it suitable for export. Russian national oil company Rosneft produces nearly 100,000 barrels of crude oil per day in Venezuela, and in previous years the company has played a crucial role in exporting Venezuelan oil to China.
Experts say these countries’ energy ties have been driven less by shared anti-U.S. sentiment than by commercial opportunity and necessity. They learned from each other how to avoid sanctions and maintain oil revenues.
Russia’s ability to build a parallel fleet of tankers and find new oil markets to finance its war in Ukraine, for example, is due in part to its oil traders’ experience transporting Venezuelan oil sanctioned during the previous confrontation between Trump and Maduro in 2019.
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