DONALD TRUMP HAS said his administration reached a huge oil deal with Venezuela that gives the US majority control of 65 billion barrels of proven petroleum reserves.
Officials from both countries said the deal, which Trump proclaimed as “the biggest oil deal in world history”, will bring nearly $100 billion (€85.89 billion) in private investment to Venezuela.
“This Historic Transaction MORE THAN DOUBLES American Oil Reserves, greatly increases our Oil Supply, and will substantially lower Gas Prices for all Americans,” he wrote on Truth Social.
Venezuela has the world’s largest proven oil reserves, with an estimated 303 billion barrels of crude oil in the ground.
Its government has operated under intense pressure and scrutiny from the Trump administration since the US captured the country’s long time ruler Nicolás Maduro in January. He will go on trial next June in New York on drug trafficking charges.
Washington allowed his vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, to stay on and serve as interim leader so long as she toes the US line.
Rodriguez confirmed what she called a “historic agreement” that would “have a significant impact on the rebirth of our nation.”
Writing on social media, she hailed potential investment of “more than $100 billion (€85.89 billion) and more than $209 billion (€179.51 billion) in tax revenue for the State.”
Trump said Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth had reached the deal with Rodriguez “through a partnership with private business.”
Venezuela has the world’s largest proven oil reserves. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
Trump has made no secret of his desire to secure Venezuelan oil for the US.
High petrol prices for Americans is a major political issue for the Republican leader, whose approval ratings have fallen ahead of November’s midterm elections after launching a war on Iran that has disrupted global oil supplies.
Questions remain
Jorge Pinon, a senior researcher at the Energy Institute at the University of Texas at Austin, said the agreement was unconventional and many questions remained about how the oil assets would be transferred, “not to a private enterprise, but to another country.”
“We don’t know how the transfer would take place,” he said. “Is it a sale? Is it a title transfer? Is it only transferred once the reserves are actually produced?”
The news site Axios had reported Thursday that the two countries were in talks on a dozen productive oil fields with 90 billion barrels of proven reserves – about a third of Venezuela’s total proven reserves of 300 billion barrels.
In return for a US ownership stake, private companies, including American firms, would develop the fields and return more oil revenue to Venezuela, according to Axios.
Axios also said the deal would more than double US oil reserves at a time when the US strategic petroleum reserve is at a 40-year low.
The Trump administration has been urging US companies to invest in Venezuela, but they remain wary due to dilapidated infrastructure and past appropriation of assets of foreign investors by the government in Caracas.
Chevron, the only US oil company that was still operating in Venezuela when Maduro was ousted, said in July that it had raised its daily crude production to 280,000 barrels and plans to increase output by 50% by the end of 2028.
John Kilduff, energy expert at Again Capital, said the biggest problem for companies to operate in Venezuela is “the safety and security of your investment.”
He said if the US is now going to control or own the oil fields, the goal would be “to establish a sort of state zone where US companies can go in, operate, and not be impacted, and hopefully eliminate the political risk that otherwise goes with investing in Venezuela.”