The US Venezuela oil deal announced by President Donald Trump would give Washington majority control over more than 65 billion barrels of Venezuela’s proven oil reserves, in what both governments have described as a landmark agreement to reshape the South American country’s energy industry. Trump posted on social media that the transaction ‘more than doubles American oil reserves, greatly increases our oil supply, and will substantially lower gas prices for all Americans’.
Venezuela holds the largest proven oil reserves in the world, estimated at 303 billion barrels, though production has fallen sharply since its peak in the late 1990s. To understand the scale of Trump’s claim, the White House puts current US territorial proven reserves at roughly 46 billion barrels. The 65 billion barrels covered by the new agreement relate to 17 strategic oil fields, not Venezuela’s total reserves.
Structure of the US Venezuela oil deal
Under the arrangement, the US government will retain 55% control of a joint venture with a private operator in Venezuela, a US official told the BBC’s media partner CBS News. Venezuela’s interim President, Delcy Rodriguez, granted the venture a 100-year concession to operate in the oil fields.
The identity of that private operator has now emerged. According to NPR, the partner is NABEP, a company owned by Venezuelan businessman Alejandro Betancourt. NPR reports that NABEP is already the second-largest operator in Venezuela, behind Chevron. The White House fact sheet also notes that the majority of the oil fields earmarked for the venture were previously controlled or operated by Russian and Chinese firms, or by associates of former presidents Nicolás Maduro and Hugo Chávez.
Trump said Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth had reached the agreement with Venezuela’s leadership ‘through a partnership with private business’, though he did not elaborate on the terms or possible commitments for the US side. He claimed the deal was reached ‘at no cost to the American taxpayer’.
What both sides say about the agreement
Rubio called it ‘a huge win for both the American and Venezuelan people’. In his own social media post, he said: ‘For the Venezuelan people, this deal will bring nearly $100 billion in private investment, support thousands of high-paying jobs, and drive the reconstruction of Venezuela’s economy.’
Rodriguez welcomed the deal in a statement, saying it would have ‘a significant impact on our nation’s revival’. She said the agreement calls for development of the 17 fields alongside ‘an investment of more than $100 billion, and more than $209 billion in taxes for the State‘. She added that the investments would contribute ‘not only to the recovery and modernization of our industry, but also to our country’s economic growth, the energy security of our hemisphere, and greater balance in international markets’.
Few other details were released publicly. The official text of the agreement between Washington and Caracas has not been published.
Trump has been under pressure to reduce domestic petrol prices, which spiked amid the Iran conflict, adding political urgency to the announcement. He has also argued that Venezuela previously ‘unilaterally seized and sold American oil, American assets and American platforms, costing us billions and billions of dollars’, framing US control over Venezuelan resources as a form of redress.
The agreement follows the capture of then-President Nicolás Maduro in a US special forces operation authorised by Trump on 3 January. In the hours after that raid, Trump said his administration would run Venezuela until a ‘safe, proper and judicious transition’ could take place, and that the US would indefinitely control the country’s oil sales. Trump has also asked US oil firms to invest at least $100 billion to restore Venezuela’s oil industry.
The deal appears broader in scope than the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority’s control over Iraq’s oil revenues after Saddam Hussein was ousted in 2003, and it is unclear whether the agreement could face legal or constitutional challenges in Venezuela. The White House fact sheet framing the fields as previously held by Russian, Chinese and Maduro-linked interests is likely to form part of the administration’s argument as those questions arise.
