The U.S President Donald Trump announced on Friday that the United States had secured majority control of more than 65 billion barrels of Venezuela’s proven oil reserves, roughly 17 per cent of global supply, in what he called the “biggest oil deal in history”. The agreement, still short on public legal detail, would let Washington more than double America’s own reserves at a moment when the Strategic Petroleum Reserve has shrunk to its lowest level in roughly 40 years.
Road to deal
The deal began with taking control of the Venezuelan seat of power. The process started in January, when U.S forces captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro to face narco-terrorism charges, and Washington quickly installed confidence in interim authorities led by Delcy Rodríguez. Within days, Trump ordered the transfer of 30 to 50 million barrels of what he called “sanctioned oil” to American buyers, and the Department of Energy began marketing Venezuelan crude to global commodity traders on the country’s behalf.
Washington then tightened the screws further: an export blockade imposed in mid-December left Venezuelan crude piling up unsold in tankers and storage tanks, pressuring Caracas to accept a $2.8 billion export arrangement that redirected oil shipments away from China, a long-time Venezuela’s largest customer, toward the U.S. Trump pushed Rodríguez to grant American and other private firms “total access” to the sector, and Friday’s (August 28) announcement suggests that she obliged. The arrangement now involves a 100-year U.S lease over 17 “strategic fields”, to be handed to hand-picked corporations. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and then-Secretary of War Pete Hegseth led the negotiations on the U.S side, working alongside Energy Secretary Chris Wright.
Which companies stand to gain
No single roster of “hand-picked corporations” has been published, but the outline of who benefits is already visible. Chevron never fully left Venezuela. It kept operating under a U.S government license even through the sanctions years and has now expanded its heavy-oil stake in the Petroindependencia joint venture while picking up new rights to develop the Ayacucho 8 area of the Orinoco Belt. That entrenched position and its existing special license mean Chevron stands to gain almost immediately.
ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips, by contrast, had their Orinoco assets expropriated under the former President Hugo Chávez's nationalisation drive and have since watched from the sidelines. Analysts now expect Exxon to benefit primarily as geopolitical risk recedes, rather than through an immediate return of assets. Oilfield-service giants SLB and Halliburton are positioned to capture major contracts as billions are funnelled into restoring degraded Venezuelan infrastructure. At the same time, refiner Valero could see margins expand once it regains steady access to discounted Venezuelan heavy crude, a grade many U.S. Gulf Coast refineries are built to process.
Who controls the money
Perhaps the most striking element of the arrangement is what happens to the cash. As per the Energy Department’s own fact sheet, all proceeds from Venezuelan crude sales will first settle in U.S-controlled accounts at “globally recognised banks” before a dollar reaches anyone else. From there, the funds will be disbursed “for the benefit of the American people and the Venezuelan people” – but strictly “at the discretion of the U.S. government”. Trump himself put it more bluntly back in January, saying the money “will be controlled by me”. He has since specified that Venezuela’s share must be spent exclusively on American-made goods, including agricultural products, medicines and grid equipment.
Rubio has said the wider deal would bring nearly $100 billion in private investment to Venezuela and revive its economy. But the financing structure means that inflow will pass through Washington’s hands before it reaches Caracas, an arrangement with few, if any, modern parallels for a nominally sovereign nation’s natural-resource revenue. At the time of writing, the underlying contract text remains unpublished.
