US shipping sanctions hit Venezuela’s oil industry hard

A cyclist rides past a mural of oil pump jacks on the Boulevard de Sabana Grande in Caracas, Venezuela, on Sunday, July 12, 2020. Picture: BLOOMBERG/Carlos BecerraShip insurers and several companies that certify vessels are seaworthy have withdrawn services to tankers involved in the Venezuelan oil trade as the US targets the maritime industry to tighten sanctions on the Latin American country.

Washington has homed in on the maritime industry in recent months in efforts to better enforce sanctions on the oil trade and isolate Caracas, Washington’s special envoy on Venezuela Elliott Abrams said. The US is pressuring classifiers to establish whether vessels have violated sanctions regulations and to withdraw certification if so as a way to tighten sanctions further, a US official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

In June the US designated six shipping companies — two of them based in Greece — and six tankers they owned for participating in proscribed Venezuelan trade. “The shipping sector has been at the receiving end of US action on Venezuela and it has caused much uncertainty as no-one knows who will be next,” a shipping industry source said.

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