Guyanese President Irfaan Ali said on Saturday that a Venezuelan naval vessel had entered his country’s waters earlier in the day, approaching an output vessel in an offshore oil block managed by ExxonMobil.
The South American neighbours are involved in a long-running dispute about which country owns the 160,000 sq km (62,000-square-mile) Essequibo area, which is the subject of an ongoing case at the International Court of Justice.
Ali said a Venezuelan patrol boat had “approached various assets in our exclusive waters” around 7am. Guyana had “put its international partners on alert,” he said on social media.
The US denounced what it said were Venezuelan naval vessels “threatening” the ExxonMobil unit, in a statement that warned of “consequences” if there was further provocation from Caracas.
The US State Department warned against any further encroachment.
“Venezuelan naval vessels threatening ExxonMobil’s floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) unit is unacceptable and a clear violation of Guyana’s internationally recognised maritime territory,” said the statement from the department’s US Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs.
