The United States has been actively tracking the oil tanker Marinera since the previous month, following its attempt to bypass the U.S. blockade targeting vessels carrying sanctioned oil near Venezuela. According to American authorities, the tanker was en route from Iran to Venezuela.

Earlier on Wednesday, the US coast guard also intercepted a tanker carrying Venezuelan oil, the Panama-flagged M Sophia, near the north-east coast of South America, US officials said, in the fourth seizure in recent weeks.

A ‘message’ to Russia, Iran and Venezuela

Anton Moiseienko, a senior lecturer in law at the Australian National University, said the US was prepared to risk escalation with Russia, which has previously retaliated against countries such as Greece after they seized shadow-fleet vessels.

Mick Ryan, a retired Australian Army major general and senior fellow for military studies at the Lowy Institute, said US President Donald Trump’s message may be specifically directed at Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“Russia is very keen to shore up whatever revenues it can attract from its illegal circumvention of sanctions because for it, of course, oil exports remain one of the primary sources of revenue that help fuel its war of choice in Ukraine,” said Tesch, who also previously served as deputy secretary at the Department of Defence.

“I don’t think we’ve seen the end of it yet,” Tesch said.

‘Not lawfully Russian-registered’

Russia’s transport ministry has called the seizure a violation of maritime law.

The US European Command announced the seizure of the Bella-1 for “violations of US sanctions”. Credit: US European Command

However, despite displaying a Russian flag, the Marinera may not be subject to the country’s legal protection.

“It’s not lawfully a Russian-registered vessel because it went through the process of trying to change its flag by painting the flag on the side whilst it’s at sea,” she said.

More tankers flying Russian flag

Some experts have said the tankers are re-flagging as Russian in an attempt to gain Russia’s protection.

However, she said this only applies if a ship has “reflagged lawfully”, adding: “I don’t think this Bella-1 was [re-flagged lawfully] in any way.”

Australia ‘monitoring’ the situation

According to CREA data, Australia was at the time the largest importer of oil products refined from Russian crude in third countries.