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By Jonathan Saul and Matt Spetalnick LONDON\/WASHINGTON, July 13 (Reuters) \u2013 Several companies that certify vessels are seaworthy and ship insurers have withdrawn services to tankers involved in the Venezuelan oil trade as the United States targets the maritime industry to tighten sanctions on the Latin American country.<\/p>\n
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U.S. sanctions have driven Venezuela\u2019s oil exports to their lowest levels in nearly 80 years, starving President Nicolas Maduro\u2019s socialist government of its main source of revenue and leaving authorities short of cash for essential imports such as food and medicine.<\/p>\n
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The sanctions are part of U.S. efforts to weaken Maduro\u2019s grip on power after Washington and other Western democracies accused him of rigging a 2018 re-election vote. Despite the country\u2019s economic collapse, Maduro has held on and frustrated the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n
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Maduro\u2019s government says the United States is trying to seize Venezuela\u2019s oil and calls the U.S. measures illegal persecution that heap suffering on the Venezuelan people.<\/p>\n
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Washington has honed in on the maritime industry in recent months in efforts to better enforce sanctions on the oil trade and isolate Caracas, Washington\u2019s special envoy on Venezuela Elliott Abrams told Reuters.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWhat you will see is most shipowners and insurance and captains are simply going to turn away from Venezuela,\u201d Abrams told Reuters in an interview.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIt\u2019s just not worth the hassle or the risk for them.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The United States is pressuring shipping companies, insurers, certifiers and flag states that register vessels, he said.<\/p>\n
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Ship classification societies, which certify safety and environmental standards for vessels, are feeling the heat for the first time.<\/p>\n
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The United States 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 U.S. official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n
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Without certification, a vessel and its cargo become uninsured. Ship owners would also be in breach of commercial contracts which require certificates to be maintained. In addition, port authorities can refuse entry or detain a ship.<\/p>\n
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London-headquartered Lloyd\u2019s Register (LR), one of the world\u2019s leading ship classifiers, said it had withdrawn services from eight tankers that were involved in trade with Venezuela.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIn accordance with our program for complying with sanctions\u2019 laws, where we become aware of vessels operating in breach of relevant sanctions laws, LR classification has been withdrawn,\u201d a Lloyd\u2019s Register spokeswoman said.<\/p>\n
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Abrams said the pressure on the maritime industry was working.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe have had a number of shippers that come to us and say, \u2018We just had our insurance company withdraw the insurance, and the ship is on the high seas and we\u2019ve got to get to port. Could you give us a license for one week?\u2019,\u201d Abrams said.<\/p>\n
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In June, the United States designated six shipping companies \u2013 two of them based in Greece \u2013 and six tankers they owned for participating in proscribed Venezuelan trade.<\/p>\n
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Another leading ship classifier, Hamburg-headquartered DNV GL Maritime, said it had suspended services for three of those vessels in June.<\/p>\n
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By Jonathan Saul and Matt Spetalnick LONDON\/WASHINGTON, July 13 (Reuters) \u2013 Several companies that certify vessels are seaworthy and ship insurers have withdrawn services to tankers involved in the Venezuelan oil trade as the United States targets the maritime industry to tighten sanctions on the Latin American country. U.S. sanctions have driven Venezuela\u2019s oil exports …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13467,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[3290,1277,41,166,8862,3684,8863],"class_list":["post-13466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-marine-world","tag-cut","tag-industry","tag-maritime","tag-oil","tag-screws","tag-turns","tag-venezuelas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13466\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/13467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}