US forces have ‘captured’ a 3rd oil tanker within the Indian Ocean weeks after it reportedly left Venezuelan waters.
Revealed On 25 Feb 2026
President Donald Trump has stated the US has acquired “greater than 80 million barrels of oil” from Venezuela, hours after the Pentagon stated US forces had “captured” a 3rd “sanctioned” oil tanker within the Indian Ocean.
“We simply acquired from our new pal and companion, Venezuela, greater than 80 million barrels of oil,” Trump introduced throughout his State of the Union handle in Washington, DC, on Tuesday evening.
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“American oil manufacturing is up by greater than 600,000 barrels a day,” stated Trump, who reiterated his promise to “drill, child, drill” for oil as president.
Trump’s lauding of progress within the US oil sector comes after he despatched particular forces to conduct a bloody raid on Caracas in January and abduct Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro, who had warned that Washington’s animosity in direction of his authorities was a pretext for the US to seize Venezuelan oil reserves.
The Trump administration has since promised to open up Venezuela’s oil business to US oil corporations, together with Chevron, Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips, which have been amongst a number of oil corporations Trump hosted at the White House for a gathering concerning the South American nation’s oil on January 9, simply days after Maduro was kidnapped to the US.
Trump’s feedback adopted after the Pentagon stated earlier on Tuesday that US forces had boarded one other oil tanker within the Indian Ocean linked to Venezuela.
“Three boats ran and now all three have been captured,” the US Division of Protection wrote in a publish on social media, which additionally included a video exhibiting weapons directed in direction of a ship because it was boarded by troops descending from two helicopters.
The publish didn’t specify which nation the vessel, often known as Bertha, had come from, however stated US forces had tracked the tanker “from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean”.
Samir Madani, a cofounder of oil tanker monitoring web site TankerTrackers.com, stated Bertha was one of many 16 oil tankers to have fled the Venezuelan coast after US forces kidnapped Maduro on January 3, in response to The Related Press information company.
Madani informed AP on Tuesday that the Bertha was laden with 1.9 million barrels of Merey 16 crude, which is a grade of Venezuelan oil.
The Bertha was flagged to the Cook dinner Islands when it was positioned beneath US sanctions associated to Iran, in response to the web site of the Treasury Division’s Workplace of Overseas Belongings Management.
Nevertheless, the vessel was extra lately listed beneath a false flag of the Caribbean island of Curacao and managed by an organization in China, in response to Equasis, a transport data system.
The most recent developments come because the Trump administration continues to develop oil extraction within the US and overseas, together with in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Trump’s doubling down on fossil fuels comes as many island nations within the Caribbean area have been calling for a transition to renewable power as they battle to reply to more and more extreme tropical storms made worse by climate change.
