Trump says the US has taken majority control of 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan oil

President Donald Trump said on Friday that the United States had secured majority control of more than 65 billion barrels of proven Venezuelan crude. He called it the biggest oil deal in world history and said it would more than double American reserves. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth negotiated the arrangement with interim President Delcy Rodríguez, he wrote on Truth Social, through a partnership with private business and at no cost to the American taxpayer.

Rodríguez’s government said the pact covers 17 fields. It forecast nearly $100 billion in private investment and more than $209 billion in tax receipts for Caracas. Rodríguez posted on Telegram that the deal would have a significant impact on the nation’s revival. Rubio said it would support thousands of jobs and help reconstruct the Venezuelan economy while giving the United States stable, low-cost crude.

A US official familiar with the papers, speaking without authority to be named, described a public-private company in which Washington holds 55 percent effective output. That share is split between an equity stake and a right to buy oil at cost. Rodríguez, the official said, granted the company 100-year rights to develop the fields. Another official told CNN the joint venture would be the second-largest private oil company by reserves in the world. Offtake would go first to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and to the US military as production scales.

Axios reported that the Pentagon’s Office of Strategic Capital would oversee the structure. The White House did not release the operator’s name, the list of fields, or the legal text. Trump asked American producers earlier this year to put at least $100 billion into Venezuelan oil after US forces seized Nicolás Maduro and flew him to the United States to face federal charges. Rodríguez has run the interim government since that operation.

Venezuela holds about 303 billion barrels of proven reserves, the largest stock in the world and roughly a fifth of the global total on Energy Information Administration figures. Production collapsed from its late-1990s peak after years of underinvestment, sanctions and the decay of wells, pipelines and upgraders around Lake Maracaibo and the Orinoco Belt. Industry estimates put the cost of a serious rebuild between $100 billion and $220 billion over a decade. The 65 billion barrels in Friday’s deal are a slice of that inventory, not the whole book.

Legal risk sits in plain view. Venezuelan law keeps the state at the centre of core oil activity. Earlier reporting by Reuters said a lease or auction model had been under discussion and could face constitutional challenge. No published contract shows how PDVSA, the state company, sits inside the new vehicle, or what happens to existing joint ventures with Chevron, Repsol and Eni. Those firms already produce from ageing assets and have been cautious about new capital.

The timing is not accidental. The US-Israel war with Iran has reached six months. Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, which carried about a fifth of seaborne oil and LNG before February, has largely stopped. American pump prices have been a political problem for the White House. A Western Hemisphere offtake at cost is meant to be an answer that does not depend on the Gulf.

Whether the barrels move is another question. Heavy Venezuelan crude needs upgraders. Much of the kit is idle. Security, titles and environmental liabilities around Maracaibo and the Orinoco have not been priced in public. Friday’s announcement created a political fact. The engineering and the contract still have to catch up.