What it captures
OFAC designation actions under Executive Order 13850 that block property of persons — companies, vessels, and facilitators — operating in or supporting Venezuela's state oil sector (PDVSA and its export logistics). The recurring pattern is shell-company-owned tankers registered in flag-of-convenience or opaque-ownership jurisdictions (Marshall Islands, BVI, Panama-flagged vessels) using deceptive shipping practices (AIS spoofing, ship-to-ship transfers) to move Venezuelan crude to buyers such as PDVSA-linked networks or China.
Why it's a distinct theme
- vs. ve-sanctions-countermeasure-architecture — that theme tracks
Venezuela's own domestic legislative/executive response to sanctions (Antibloqueo Law, CIIP). This theme tracks the imposing US side of the EO 13850 oil-sector perimeter specifically.
- vs. us-iran-maximum-pressure — some OFAC press releases bundle
Venezuela and Iran designees together (shared shadow-fleet tactics, and occasional dual Iran-Venezuela oil-trade facilitators), but the legal authority and policy lineage differ: EO 13850 is Venezuela-specific, distinct from the Iran E.O. 13902/NSPM-2 stack. Actions whose designations rest primarily on EO 13850 belong here even if a co-released designation elsewhere in the same press release touches Iran.
- vs. us-counter-narcotics-sanctions — narcotics-trafficking
designations of Venezuelan-government-linked individuals (EO 14059) are a separate legal perimeter from the oil-sector shipping-network designations (EO 13850), even when announced in the same Treasury release.
Filing roadmap
- Prior and subsequent EO 13850 shipping/tanker designation waves as they are
identified in the historical record or filed going forward.
- PDVSA-linked facilitator and front-company designations tied to sanctions
evasion.
- Any parallel UK/EU measures against jurisdictionally-overlapping designees
(e.g., UK-registered shipping companies named in OFAC actions).