Venezuelan crude is still reaching US ports despite sanctions and a US naval buildup. The oil flows today. Tomorrow is a question mark.

Oil Moves While Rhetoric Spikes

Everyone is pretending it isn’t happening, but oil is still moving from Venezuela to the United States in the middle of a diplomatic knife fight. Business Today flagged the issue, citing energy analyst Anas Alhajji: “Today, we have tankers arriving from Venezuela delivering oil to the United States despite the sanctions.” The point was delivered with a side of realpolitik. The trade is happening. The rules are a moving target.

The Chevron Carve-Out in Action

What keeps the flow alive is not magic. It is licensing. In July, the US Treasury reportedly issued a restricted license to Chevron that allowed operations and exports from Venezuela to resume after a pause. Two Chevron-chartered tankers, Mediterranean Voyager and Canopus Voyager, loaded Boscan and Hamaca crudes and reached US waters. That is not rumor. It is shipping threaded through a sanctions maze that Washington built, then partially unlocked for one company.

Double Standards or Just Another Friday?

Alhajji did not hold back on the optics. He pointed out that tankers are arriving from Venezuela while Washington publicly punishes some buyers and quietly creates exceptions, even as Europe keeps importing Russian gas and LNG. He also noted, “The US still imports uranium from Russia. No one is saying anything about it.” You do not have to agree with the framing to recognize the punchline. Energy policy often reads like a choose-your-own-principles adventure.

Caracas to the Pentagon: Not Today

Across the water, the mood is not calm. Al Jazeera quotes President Nicolás Maduro telling troops, “There’s no way they can enter Venezuela,” while vowing the country is ready to defend its sovereignty as US warships arrive to run an anti-cartel operation in the Southern Caribbean. Maduro’s line was not subtle, and it was not meant to be. It was domestic theatre and strategic messaging in the same breath.

An Armada, an Echo

Seven US warships and a nuclear-powered fast attack submarine are in or heading to the region. More than 4,500 US service members are aboard, including about 2,200 Marines. Those are not rhetorical devices. They are hulls, engines, and payrolls. Caracas has answered with its own show of force, sending warships and drones to patrol the coast and urging militia recruitment. None of that turns valves, but all of it raises the risk that politics, not geology, decides where barrels go next.

Maduro’s government has also deployed 15,000 troops to the border with Colombia to confront drug-trafficking groups. You can read that as law-and-order theater or border security. Either way, it adds to the sense of a tightening perimeter around an oil trade that is simultaneously open and precarious.

Today’s Barrels, Tomorrow’s Question Mark

Put the pieces together. On the one hand, the market has a functioning channel. Chevron’s shipments show that sanctioned energy can still thread the needle if the paperwork aligns. On the other hand, the military temperature is rising, and leaders are getting a little hot under the collar. Oil companies do not like uncertainty. Traders like it even less. One policy memo in Washington or one incident at sea could flip the script from carve-outs to clampdown in a day. That is the part nobody can model.

What to Watch Next

Watch the license terms. If the restricted license that enabled Chevron’s movements is narrowed, the flow tightens. If it is extended, barrels keep crossing the Gulf. Watch the choreography at sea. More ships, closer passes, or a hot mic could spook insurers and charterers faster than any press conference. And listen for fewer speeches and more customs stamps. In this story, the most honest sentences are on bills of lading.

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