© Miguel Gutierrez/EPA
Investors who buy idle sanctioned tankers and refit them could put the ships back into legal oil trade, US Energy Secretary Chris Wright said on 19 October, Bloomberg reported. He laid out the plan five days after a US official described it to Reuters.
That official said the aim was to cut record tanker freight rates. The Energy Department added that any relief would not help Russia move its oil. The plan comes weeks before the 3 November midterms, with voters worried about fuel costs after gasoline and diesel prices surged in the Mideast conflict. Yet the shadow fleet is also how Russia sells oil past sanctions, and those sales fund its war against Ukraine. In December 2025, Ukraine’s foreign intelligence counted more than 1,100 tankers serving Russia alone, 226 of them under US sanctions.
Many sanctioned tankers sit idle, Wright told Bloomberg’s Annmarie Hordern, and buyers keep approaching the administration offering to fix them up and carry only legal oil.
“We’re going to move some of the ships from what I call the ‘bad-guy fleet’ to the ‘good-guy fleet,’” he said. “They will not carry sanctioned oil anymore.”
The ships must go through an approval process, Wright said, but he gave no criteria. He insisted “there is no removing of sanctions.”
He put the global dark fleet at about 1,600 ships, a count covering vessels that hauled Venezuelan, Iranian, and Russian oil. Dozens or even hundreds could turn legitimate, he said. The ships are no longer needed for Venezuelan oil, Wright said, and no Iranian oil is moving. Russian oil exports, he added, “are certainly not growing.”
Earlier, on 9 October, the Treasury issued General License 135, allowing some deals in Russian diesel until 7 April 2027. On 16 October, US President Donald Trump waived sanctions and tariffs under the Graham Act, leaving earlier sanctions intact. That law had directed him to review and sanction shadow-fleet vessels. Trump defended the waiver as a way to keep Moscow at the negotiating table.
House Speaker Mike Johnson told Fox News host Larry Kudlow on 18 October that he had asked the White House team to “carefully consider the unintended consequences,” The Hill reported. He added that he thought “the right decision will be made” in the end.
Las delegaciones del chavismo y la oposición venezolana concluyeron este martes su tercera ronda de negociaciones políticas en Caracas sin que se hicieran públicos acuerdos definitivos entre ambas delegaciones. El anuncio de los resultados de esta tercera ronda, que se esperaba para la tarde, terminó demorando varias horas, y fue formalizado sobre las nueve de la noche. Con el fin de esta jornada se ha dado término a una intensa agenda de 10 días de trabajo. La próxima sesión, la cuarta, ha quedado prevista para el mes de noviembre.
© Miguel Gutiérrez (EFE)
Caracas, 21 oct (Prensa Latina) El tercer ciclo de diálogo entre representantes del Gobierno venezolano y exdiputados de la extinta Asamblea Nacional (parlamento) concluyó hoy en Caracas con importantes acuerdos de carácter político, económicos y sociales.
The post Con importantes acuerdos cerró tercer ciclo de diálogo en Venezuela first appeared on Noticias Prensa Latina.
Venezuela needs a competent supreme court, truly independent political parties, the freedom of its political prisoners, and the restored trust of its people for a democratic transition to successfully take place, Dinorah Figuera, the leader of the opposition delegation negotiating that transition, told Breitbart News.
The post Exclusive — Dinorah Figuera, the Woman Leading Venezuela’s Road to Elections: ‘The Interests of the Country Come First’ appeared first on Breitbart.
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