Trump claims Venezuela will deliver up to 50 million barrels of oil

The United States is beginning to profit from the military operation in Venezuela to overthrow the country’s president, Nicolás Maduro. While the bombs dropped on Caracas were still smoking, Donald Trump admitted at a press conference at midday Saturday that he wants major U.S. companies to control Venezuela’s ailing oil industry. “We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies — the biggest anywhere in the world — go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure,” the U.S. president stated. Since then, he has hinted at how much he is interested in exploiting Venezuela’s phenomenal oil reserves, the largest in the world. On Tuesday, he announced that Venezuela will increase its oil sales to the United States.

Through Truth Social, the social network created by the Republican to share his opinions, he stated: “I am pleased to announce that the Interim Authorities in Venezuela will be turning over between 30 and 50 MILLION Barrels of High Quality, Sanctioned Oil, to the United States of America.”

Given the diminished capacity of Venezuela’s oil industry, that amount represents roughly one or two months’ worth of production, around 30 to 50 days. And considering current prices for West Texas Intermediate (WTI), the U.S. benchmark crude, the volume could reach a value of more than $2.8 billion, according to Bloomberg.

The United States had imposed sanctions on the Chavista regime regarding oil sales. The Venezuelan oil industry was barely producing one million barrels per day, a third of what it produced in the 1970s, when it pumped 8% of the world’s total supply, and far from the 13 million barrels pumped by the United States or the 10 million extracted by Saudi Arabia from its fields. Most of Venezuela’s crude production — around two-thirds — is sold to China via intermediary vessels to circumvent the sanctions. A quarter is sold to the United States through Chevron, which has been doing business in the Caribbean country for almost a century. The remainder is sold to Russia, Cuba, and other countries within Caracas’ sphere of influence.

The Venezuelan oil industry does not have the capacity to substantially increase production immediately, so it is assumed that it will reduce its sales to Chinese customers in order to increase them to U.S. recipients.

“This Oil will be sold at its Market Price, and that money will be controlled by me, as President of the United States of America, to ensure it is used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States!” Trump added via social media.

Chevron is already increasing its activity in the Caribbean country. It has sent at least 11 tankers to Venezuela. They are expected to dock near ports controlled by the new Chavista regime, which has shown a willingness to cooperate with the United States.

“I have instructed Energy Secretary Chris Wright to execute this transportation plan directly and immediately to U.S. unloading docks,” Trump stated.

The announcement comes as it was revealed that Trump is preparing a meeting next week with top White House energy officials to define a strategy to help convince Western companies to invest in Venezuela’s energy industry, according to Bloomberg. Wright and Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, among other administration energy experts, are expected to participate in the meeting.

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