Trump Says the United States Has Taken Majority Control of 65 Billion Barrels of Venezuelan Oil

United States President Donald Trump said his government had reached what he called the biggest oil deal in world history, securing majority control of more than 65 billion barrels of proven Venezuelan reserves at no cost to American taxpayers, Al Jazeera reported. He said the transaction more than doubles American oil reserves and would lower fuel prices.

The two governments describe the same agreement differently. Venezuela's interim president, Delcy Rodriguez, presented it as a development contract covering 17 fields that would deliver roughly $209 billion to the Venezuelan state, according to Al Jazeera and Ynet, which noted the announcement comes about eight months after American forces captured Nicolas Maduro. Dawn reported that Washington is taking control of about a fifth of the country's reserves. Japan's Jiji Press also described the American claim as control over roughly 20 percent of Venezuelan crude.

A White House official has since given CNN some of the structure that was missing at first announcement. The deal grants the United States 55 percent of the effective output of a new private joint venture that the official said would become the second-largest private oil company in the world by reserves, split between an equity stake and the right to buy crude at cost. Rodriguez has granted that private venture 100-year concessions on the fields involved. The two governments' headline figures, majority control of 65 billion barrels against a fifth of national reserves, still have not been reconciled, and no contract text has been published. NPR reported that Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth negotiated with Rodriguez over several weeks.

Separately, Chevron and Halliburton are nearing their own investment deals with Venezuelan oil operators, Yahoo Finance reported citing the Wall Street Journal. Chevron, already the sole large American company with an active presence in Venezuela through joint ventures with the state oil company PDVSA, is close to adding two heavy-oil fields to its portfolio, while Halliburton is in talks to supply oilfield equipment and services. Those negotiations run alongside, and are distinct from, the government-linked arrangement over the 17 fields.

Reserves are not production. Venezuelan output has been constrained for years by damaged infrastructure, sanctions and the loss of skilled labor, and heavy Venezuelan crude requires specific refining capacity, most of it on the United States Gulf Coast.