Amount of oil carried on each tanker America seized from Venezuela in 2025?
Executive summary
The tankers U.S. forces seized in December 2025 were carrying very large crude cargos — roughly in the 1.8–2.0 million barrel range per vessel — with reporting focused especially on the VLCC Skipper (about 1.8–2 million barrels, with a partial 200,000‑barrel ship‑to‑ship transfer) and at least one other fully loaded vessel of similar size, the Centuries, which industry trackers and officials described as carrying a full VLCC cargo [1] [2] [3] [4].
1. The concrete numbers reporters have cited about Skipper
Multiple investigative accounts converge on a specific figure for the tanker Skipper: satellite and PDVSA‑provided documents show Skipper left Venezuela’s Jose terminal after loading some 1.8 million barrels of Merey heavy crude, and independent trackers and news organizations reported the ship transferred roughly 200,000 barrels offshore to another vessel before U.S. authorities executed a seizure warrant [1] [2]. PBS and Reuters both characterize the Skipper’s cargo as roughly two million barrels of heavy crude — the same order of magnitude as other VLCC (very large crude carrier) cargoes — and note that part of that cargo was contracted to Cuban buyers [2] [1].
2. What reporting says about the Centuries and the “other” seized ship
Press accounts identify the Panama‑flagged Centuries as another tanker that U.S. forces moved against; industry analysts and satellite imagery showed Centuries loaded at Jose Oil Terminal and headed toward Asia, consistent with a full VLCC cargo, and reporting treats it as a fully loaded shipment similar in scale to Skipper [3] [2]. Reuters and other outlets summarize U.S. actions as having seized “two fully loaded cargoes” of Venezuelan oil in December 2025, which — given how VLCCs operate and the published reporting — implies cargoes in the roughly two‑million‑barrel range each [4] [5].
3. Why most accounts cluster around ~2 million barrels per tanker
The convergence around figures near two million barrels stems from three reporting threads: specific load‑out data for Skipper (1.8 million loaded, 200,000 transferred) from satellite and PDVSA documents [1] [2], industry‑standard VLCC capacities (VLCCs commonly carry on the order of ~1.9–2.2 million barrels, a context implicitly used by reporters), and statements that the U.S. seized “fully loaded cargoes” — plural — in mid‑December, which market and shipping analysts interpret as full VLCC loads [4] [2] [3].
4. Caveats, conflicting claims and limits of available evidence
Open‑source reporting is clear that the U.S. seized multiple fully loaded tankers and gives a precise figure only for Skipper’s loaded amount and its partial transfer; exact manifests, bills of lading and U.S. evidentiary affidavits have not been published in full, so any per‑tankers numbers beyond Skipper’s documented 1.8 million barrels rely on vessel type, satellite tracking and sources’ characterizations rather than declassified cargo manifests [1] [2] [4]. Venezuela, China and other international actors have denounced the seizures and questioned legal grounds — political and legal contestation that affects which documents become public and how numbers are reported [6] [7].
5. Bottom line and how to read these figures
For the two tankers the United States publicly acknowledged taking possession of in December 2025, the best supported figure for Skipper is about 1.8 million barrels loaded with an on‑route transfer of ~200,000 barrels [1] [2], while reporting describes the other seized ship, notably the Centuries, as carrying full VLCC cargoes of Venezuelan Merey crude — i.e., roughly the same ~2‑million‑barrel scale — and Reuters explicitly summarizes the operation as two fully loaded cargo seizures [3] [4]. Any finer precision requires access to official cargo manifests or court filings not publicly released as of the cited reporting [1] [4].