Trump says U.S. takes majority control of 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan oil

President Donald Trump said on Friday that the United States has secured majority control of more than 65 billion barrels of Venezuela's proven oil reserves through a partnership with private business. He called it the biggest oil deal in world history and said it would more than double American oil reserves and eventually cut petrol prices at home.

The announcement arrived on Truth Social with few contract papers attached. Trump named Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth as the negotiators and praised Venezuela's interim president, Delcy Rodríguez. Rubio called the arrangement a win for both countries and said it would bring nearly $100 billion in private investment, support thousands of jobs and help rebuild Venezuela's economy.

Rodríguez's government issued its own statement. It said the agreement covers the development of 17 strategic fields with a proven potential of 65 billion barrels, that it could attract $100 billion in investment, and that it could yield more than $209 billion in taxes for Caracas. She described the pact as historic on Telegram.

A U.S. official who was not authorised to speak publicly filled in more of the structure. According to that account, Rodríguez granted a new private company 100-year rights to develop fields totalling about 63 billion barrels of proven reserves. The United States would hold 55 percent of effective output, including an ownership stake and the right to buy oil at cost. Production would feed offtake crude for the U.S. market, help refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and supply the American military. The official said the venture would become the second-largest corporate holder of proven reserves after Saudi Aramco. Axios reported that the Pentagon's Office of Strategic Capital would oversee the arrangement.

The numbers sit against a larger reserve base. The U.S. Energy Information Administration puts Venezuela's proven crude at about 303 billion barrels, among the largest holdings on earth and roughly a fifth of identified global supply. Sixty-five billion barrels is a slice of that stock, not the whole belt. Most of the country's oil sits in the Orinoco Belt as extra-heavy crude that needs upgraders, diluent and working pipelines before it can move.

Those machines have not worked well for years. Production collapsed from more than three million barrels a day at the end of the 1990s. PDVSA documents from 2021 said many pipelines had not been updated in half a century and put the bill to restore peak output near $58 billion. Later estimates have run to $100 billion or more. Only one upgrader has been described as fully operational in recent reporting. Carabobo, one of the largest Orinoco blocks, has missed internal targets this year for lack of rigs and parts.

The political frame is as important as the geology. U.S. forces seized Nicolás Maduro earlier this year and flew him to the United States to face federal charges. Rodríguez became interim president after that operation. Venezuelan opposition figures have already objected to reports that Washington wants a large stake in oil and gas. Legal title, congressional approval in the United States, and the condition of field equipment all sit between Friday's posts and actual barrels.

Trump has spent the week under pressure to cut petrol prices as the Iran war, now six months old, keeps Hormuz constrained. He has asked U.S. firms to put at least $100 billion into Venezuela's oil system. Chevron already holds joint ventures there and has been raising its stake. Exxon has been reported in talks on several fields. The new company named on Friday has not been identified in public filings.

What Friday settled is the political claim: Washington and the interim government in Caracas say they have agreed on majority U.S. control of a 65-billion-barrel package, offtake at cost, and a century of development rights. What remains unpublished is the shareholder list, the field map, the royalty schedule, and the first date on which those barrels would move. Those details will decide whether the announcement becomes production or stays a press release.