Dec 18 (Reuters) – Venezuela authorized on Thursday two very large crude carriers (VLCC) to set sail for China, according to two sources familiar with Venezuela’s oil export operations, which would be only the second and third supertankers to depart since the U.S. seized a ship carrying Venezuelan oil last week.
The tankers are not on the U.S. sanctions list. The United States has said it would not allow any sanctioned vessels to leave Venezuelan waters. The tankers are each carrying around 1.9 million barrels of Venezuelan Merey heavy crude, according to internal documents from state company PDVSA.
The ships were planning to navigate with their tracking transponder switched off, one of the sources said.
(Reporting by Aizhu Chen, Marianna Parraga and Reuters staff)
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