As authorities in the country prepared to expand retail sales under a system combining subsidies and international prices, Refinitiv Eikon reported that the fifth cargo of an Iranian flotilla approached the Caribbean Sea and reached Venezuelan waters on Sunday.

Of 1,800 stations in Venezuela, about 240 have remained working since the government announced coronavirus-related lockdown measures in March, which included restrictions on fuel sales due to very low inventories.

More than 1,500 stations nationwide are expected to work in the coming days under the new system, which includes monthly quotas for vehicles and motorcycles, automated sales and monitoring equipment. Despite the price increases, it will cost about $1 to fill a whole tank of a vehicle under the subsidy.

After reaching the quotas, drivers will have to pay internationally indexed prices.

The remaining 200 stations will be supplied by independent companies, so drivers buying at those sites will be charged $0.50 per liter of gasoline and will have to pay in foreign currency.

Lines of drivers began forming at stations in cities including Maracay, Valencia and Caracas in anticipation of the gasoline distribution.

Gasoline has been heavily subsidized in Venezuela, which coupled with hyperinflation in recent years has made it almost free, but acute scarcity has recently encouraged a black market that has forced people to pay at least $2 per liter.

Venezuela’s refineries, which can produce more than 1.3 million barrels per day (bpd) of fuel, have worked at less than 20-percent capacity in 2020, mainly due to power outages and lack of spare parts.

As US sanctions imposed on Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA have also limited the sources and types of products Venezuela can import, Maduro’s socialist administration this year turned to Iran for refining parts and fuel.

The supply has been criticized by the United States as both nations are under unilateral US sanctions.

Four tankers have already reached their destinations and unloaded their cargoes. Venezuela’s military has escorted each tanker through its exclusive economic zone, with the navy posting images of its ships alongside the Iranian cargoes to show it remains unbowed by pressure.

“This is a war, my dear fellow countrymen who listen to me, a brutal war,” Present Nicolas Maduro said Saturday, adding, the US was “persecuting any company that brings a drop of gasoline to Venezuela.”

The oil industries of Iran and Venezuela are both under US sanctions. 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 result of the sanctions.

“Venezuela has the right to buy in the world whatever it wants to buy,” Maduro said. “Fortunately, Venezuela has more friends than people can imagine.”

Washington has threatened governments, seaports, shipping firms and insurers with sanctions if they aid the Iranian supply, US special envoy for Venezuela, Elliott Abrams, said on Friday.

Venezuela’s Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza said his government will use Abrams’ comments as proof in an international case against sanctions.

Reuters and Press TV contributed to this story.

The fleet is carrying 1.53 million barrels of gasoline and components and is arriving amid tensions between Tehran and Washington, which has imposed sanctions on Venezuelan oil exports and Iran.

“The Iranian oil/chem Handymax tanker, FORTUNE, which loaded 43 million liters of gasoline during mid-March at Port Shahid Rajaee, Iran, has now moored at berth 2 at the refinery of El Palito, Venezuela, situated west of the capital city, Caracas,” tweeted TankerTrackers.com.

A second vessel, the Forest, entered the Caribbean Sea on Saturday. The three remaining vessels — the Petunia, Faxon and Clavel — are crossing the Atlantic and will arrive in the next few days.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro thanked Iran on Sunday.

“I want to thank from the noblest heart all the people of the Islamic Republic of Iran, President Hassan Rouhani, my friend and counterpart. To Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, the loyal follower of the historical legacy of Ayatollah Khomeini. To all of Iran, from the heart, for your solidarity, for your support, for your courage, for your decision. Yesterday, the tanker arrived in Venezuela, at the end of Ramadan, the sacred month of our Muslim brothers. The ship Fortune has arrived. The first of five ships bringing gasoline, which brings supplies to make gasoline in Venezuela. An agreement of cooperation that we have with Iran,” Maduro said in a state television address.

He said Venezuela and Iran “both want peace, and we have the right to trade freely.”

Maduro referred to the two countries as “revolutionary peoples who will never kneel down before the North American empire.”

The US said earlier this month it was considering “measures” to take in response to the shipments, without providing specifics.

Venezuela’s refining network has been operating this year at about 10 percent of its 1.3 million-barrel-per-day capacity, forcing it to rely on imports. US sanctions limit the sources and types of fuel it can receive.

Maduro said the tankers were bringing gasoline and other materials to the country’s refineries to produce gasoline.

Venezuela’s permanent representative to the UN welcomed the arrival of Iranian tankers, urging US President Donald Trump to avoid an act of aggression based on the “wrong advice” of warmongers.

In a series of tweets on Sunday, Samuel Moncada cited an open letter to Trump, written by a group of 14 retired experts of the US intelligence community, who warned him against a military attack on the Venezuela-bound Iranian fuel tankers.

“The Iranian gasoline reaching Venezuela is a landmark in the struggle for sovereignty, independence and peace. Trump and his minions are thinking of a military attack against the tankers amidst the pandemic. His experts advise him otherwise,” he wrote.

Moncada also enumerated the arguments provided by the experts against any “unnecessary adventure” by the US against Iranian vessels, saying they believe that “the act of war does not serve US interests.”

Any such attack could trigger “unpredictable responses” and lead to “unprecedented situations” beyond US control, the Venezuelan envoy quoted experts as saying.

“Warmongering Generals & advisers in Washington are playing with fire in a dangerous situation and exploiting Venezuelan extremists. They are seeking a war with Iran in the Middle East contrary to US interest. They have attempted this many times in the past,” Moncada wrote.

He further emphasized that Trump’s threats will not weaken Maduro but rather strengthen him and unify most of the people against aggression.

“In their long experience in defending the US, they do not understand how could attacking legal trade between two countries that do not pose a national threat serve their own interests. Venezuelans, meanwhile, want no war either, but dialogue,” he wrote.

“Trump’s policy thus far has been a failure and, even with the pandemic, it seems to have no chance of success in the near future. Avoiding a war resulting from the wrong advice of adventurers in Washington and Venezuela is the best option for the US,” Moncada said.

Also on Sunday, the Iranian Embassy in Caracas posted a video of the tanker arriving in Venezuelan waters. “The first Iranian tanker reached the Venezuelan coasts. Grateful to the Bolivarian Armed Forces for escorting them,” it tweeted.

Relations between Caracas and Tehran have become close since former Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez took power in 1999.

AFP, Reuters, and Press TV contributed to this story.