A Venezuelan oil worker holding a small Iranian flag attends a ceremony for the arrival of Iranian oil tanker Fortune at the El Palito refinery near Puerto Cabello, Venezuela, Monday, May 25, 2020. Fortune is the first of five tankers loaded with gasoline sent from Iran and is expected to temporarily ease Venezuela's fuel crunch while defying Trump administration sanctions targeting the two US foes. (ERNESTO VARGAS / AP)

The Venezuelan navy said it escorted a fourth tanker bringing Iranian fuel through its waters on Thursday, while the United States called the shipments to the gasoline-starved country a distraction from problems facing President Nicolas Maduro.

Iran is providing its fellow OPEC member up to 1.53 million barrels of gasoline and refining components to help ease an acute shortage

The oil industries of Iran and Venezuela are both under US sanctions. Iran is providing its fellow OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) member up to 1.53 million barrels of gasoline and refining components to help ease an acute shortage, the result of the near-complete breakdown in its refining network as well as the sanctions.

Washington has said it is weighing a response to the shipments.

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Venezuela’s military has escorted each tanker through its exclusive economic zone. The navy on Thursday posted images of its ships alongside the fourth cargo, on vessel Faxon.

Refinitiv Eikon data showed the Faxon docking at a port serving state-run PDVSA’s Puerto la Cruz refinery on Venezuela’s eastern coast on Thursday afternoon. The third tanker to arrive, the Petunia, entered El Palito port earlier on Thursday, the data showed.

The first two were still discharging, and a fifth, the Clavel, was crossing the Atlantic Ocean toward the Caribbean.

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A spokesman for the US State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs said it would continue to “press for the restoration of Venezuelan democracy.” Washington, along with dozens of other countries, say Maduro rigged his 2018 re-election.

Maduro accuses the United States of seeking to oust him to control Venezuela’s oil resources.

But this week he also pledged to reform the fuel distribution system, stating that citizens would have to start paying for fuel after over two decades of heavy subsidies and frozen prices at the pump.

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