Drifting Tanker Reveals Major Hurdle for Trump Plan to Revive Venezuela’s Oil

A tanker meandering in the Caribbean near Venezuela underscores the steep hurdles to ramping up the country’s oil production following the US capture of President Nicolás Maduro.

The Sea Maverick, which has been linked to the so-called dark fleet of tankers carrying sanctioned Russian oil, has been circling near the Venezuelan coast since early January after the US intensified a blockade of the country, according to analytics firm Vortexa. It’s carrying about 380,000 barrels of naphtha, a petroleum product Venezuela needs to thin out its thick, sludgy crude so it can flow through pipelines for export.