{"id":67458,"date":"2026-01-06T11:24:05","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T19:24:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/energi.media\/?p=67458"},"modified":"2026-01-06T11:24:05","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T19:24:05","slug":"trump-says-hell-unleash-venezuelas-oil-but-who-wants-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/energi.media\/news\/trump-says-hell-unleash-venezuelas-oil-but-who-wants-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump says he\u2019ll unleash Venezuela\u2019s oil. But who wants it?"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article was published by Grist<\/a> on Jan. 5, 2025.<\/em><\/p>\n

By Jake Bittle<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Shortly after launching a dramatic raid in which U.S. forces abducted Venezuelan leader Nicol\u00e1s Maduro on Saturday, President Donald Trump justified the action with a promise to revive Venezuela\u2019s moribund oil industry. The country has by far the largest claimed reserves of crude oil in the world, accounting for almost a fifth of the planet\u2019s remaining known crude oil, but its production has plummeted under Maduro, who has ruled the country since 2013.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re 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, and start making money for the country,\u201d Trump said during a press conference at Mar-a-Lago in which he announced Maduro\u2019s capture.<\/p>\n

This intervention comes at a pivotal moment for the global oil industry, which continues to stare down the prospect of a broad transition to renewable energy. For this reason, it\u2019s not obvious that future markets can justify a surge of investment in Venezuela. On one hand, the country\u2019s extra-heavy crude oil is perfect for diesel and jet fuel, which are helpful in hard-to-decarbonize industries. This makes it less threatened by the meteoric rise of electric vehicles displacing gasoline-powered cars. On the other hand, the world is already experiencing an overall glut of oil, and analysts expect demand to peak in the next decade. While there are buyers for additional oil that could be pumped in Venezuela \u2014 some of them on the U.S. Gulf Coast \u2014 experts say a total revival on the order that Trump is promising may not be in the cards.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThere\u2019s a guaranteed market for it, but a market that has its limitations in size,\u201d said Antoine Halff, the founder of the climate and data analysis firm Kayrros and a nonresident fellow at Columbia University\u2019s Center on Global Energy Policy.<\/p>\n

As electric vehicles and renewable energy continue to expand, the world appears to be approaching a peak in oil demand. While the exact timing of that peak is disputed \u2014 it could happen within four years or in more than 15 years \u2014 almost all analysts agree that it is coming. At that point, there may no longer be sufficient demand to keep exploiting new oil fields, no matter how large. And given that it will take many years just to update the infrastructure that will allow for increased oil production in Venezuela in the first place, investors may decide that the juice is not worth the squeeze.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s the matter of predicting future prices in a notoriously volatile industry. Oil companies only make a profit when global oil prices stay above a certain level. For the U.S. companies that produce oil from Texas shale, for example, that number is\u00a0around $60 a barrel<\/a>, which is close to the current benchmark price. For Saudi Arabia, it\u2019s\u00a0closer to $90 a barrel<\/a>, because oil revenues back almost all the kingdom\u2019s government spending. In the newest oil fields, such as those offshore of Guyana,\u00a0it\u2019s as low as $30<\/a>. There are already concerns that an oversupply of oil worldwide could send prices tumbling over the next year, making new fields less palatable to investors. If demand plateaus, a surge of Venezuelan crude would push prices even further down. Since Venezuela is a member of OPEC, it would have to coordinate production along with Saudi and other major producers, who would likely prevent Venezuela from flooding the market.<\/p>\n

Even so, there will likely be long-term demand for the specific kind of oil that Venezuela produces. That\u2019s because any energy transition will not happen at equal speed across all parts of the transportation sector. The expansion of electric vehicles will first replace passenger cars and mopeds, which rely on lighter oil from fields like those of the Texas shale. Larger vehicles like airplanes and heavy-duty trucks are harder to replace \u2014 they need more power than EV batteries can feasibly provide at present \u2014 and they rely on heavy oil like Venezuela\u2019s. A report from the oil trading firm Vitol\u00a0found<\/a>\u00a0that \u201cthe initial pace of decline [for diesel] is expected to be slow compared to gasoline, but begins to gather pace from 2035 onwards.\u201d Few other countries boast the same kind of extra-heavy reserves that Venezuela has, and those that do, like Canada, have much higher production costs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are the hard-to-abate segments,\u201d said Halff. \u201cIt\u2019s the part of oil demand that looks like it\u2019s not going to shrink quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Venezuela pumped more than 3 million barrels of oil per day at the turn of the century, but production totals have plummeted since then. After the government of Hugo Ch\u00e1vez nationalized major oil infrastructure in 2007, the United States imposed financial sanctions that forced Venezuela to sell its oil at steep discounts. Under the Maduro government, the state-owned oil company racked up debts and saw an exodus of skilled workers. Pumps and pipelines decayed out of service, storage tanks collapsed, and production\u00a0bottomed out at around 500,000 barrels per day<\/a>\u00a0during the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

President Trump has promised that his aggressive raid on Venezuela will lead to a revival of this industry, and he has reportedly urged U.S. oil producers to aid him in the effort. In remarks following the Maduro raid, he promised that American companies would return to Venezuela and help export oil to other countries. Given how inefficient the state-run oil sector has become, analysts believe it would be easy to restore\u00a0some<\/em>\u00a0production in the short term with outside investment and sanctions relief.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur assumption is that there are a lot of wells that just need a workover,\u201d said Adrian Lara, the lead analyst for the Latin American oil industry at the research firm Wood Mackenzie,\u00a0in a brief published last month<\/a>\u00a0before Maduro\u2019s capture. \u201cYou can boost production through opex [operational expenditure], without needing much new capex [capital expenditure]\u201d \u2014 in other words, a tune-up rather than a full surge of new investment.<\/p>\n

In the short term, there is ample demand. The oil in the country\u2019s vast Orinoco Belt is very heavy and viscous, like molasses, in contrast to U.S. shale oil, which is about as thin as vinegar. This makes it more expensive and more carbon-intensive to produce, but also makes it well suited for conversion into diesel fuel in trucks and for other uses like asphalt. There are several refineries along the Gulf Coast that were built to process this kind of heavy crude, and these refineries are operating below capacity. Right now, Venezuela exports most of its oil to China, which would also likely purchase more for its own refineries. An industry expert who\u00a0spoke to The Wall Street Journal<\/a>\u00a0said access to those reserves could be a \u201cgame changer\u201d in terms of increasing Gulf Coast refiners\u2019 profits.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now there\u2019s plenty of appetite for heavy crude globally,\u201d said Robert Auers, a refined fuels market analyst at the energy consultancy RBN Energy. \u201cEven if Venezuelan production were to come back real strong, the global market could easily absorb that.\u201d<\/p>\n

But a grand revival like the one Trump has promised would be a much taller order, given that it would take decades to unfold. The energy analysis firm Rystad Energy projects that a return to pre-Maduro levels would require an investment of $110 billion, and these investments would not bear fruit for a decade or more. Even Chevron, the only U.S. oil producer that operates in the country, would need to invest an estimated $7 billion in order to add another 500,000 barrels, according to a former executive who spoke with The New York Times.<\/p>\n

The climate pollution stemming from this crude might also play a factor in its market appeal. Right now, the heavy oil extraction in the Orinoco Belt is some of the most carbon-intensive in the world, in part because enormous amounts of\u00a0methane<\/span>\u00a0are flared during the process. As governments continue to pursue Paris Agreement targets, however fitfully, they might shy away from such fields wherever possible and instead import lower-carbon barrels. (The European Union has already committed to do this.) Many experts believe that oil majors will hesitate before taking the plunge on a resource that is far tougher to handle than the crude in U.S. shale fields or the Middle East.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s all in addition to the political uncertainty that has followed Trump\u2019s attempt to depose Maduro. It remains unclear what shape the new government of Venezuela will take. Given that other producers like Exxon Mobil lost billions of dollars when the Ch\u00e1vez government nationalized their assets, it\u2019s far from obvious that these oil companies would want to invest under continued political instability. Past U.S. interventions have demonstrated similar dynamics: Oil production in Libya has still not recovered since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, and it took almost a decade for Iraqi oil production to rebound after the U.S. invaded in 2003.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do not believe in a significant increase in the short term,\u201d said Rudolf Elias, chair of the supervisory board of Staatsolie, the state oil company of\u00a0Suriname, which is pursuing an offshore oil project<\/a>\u00a0in the waters east of Venezuela. \u201cIt will take years before the industry is revived \u2026 then it is dirty oil, and heavy, so it will not be first in the row.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article was published by Grist on Jan. 5, 2025. By Jake Bittle Shortly after launching a dramatic raid in which U.S. forces abducted Venezuelan leader Nicol\u00e1s Maduro on Saturday, President Donald Trump justified the [Read more]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":67460,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"give_campaign_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[322,41,14,67,1167,1060,437],"class_list":{"0":"post-67458","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-energy","10":"tag-featured","11":"tag-oil","12":"tag-oil-demand","13":"tag-oil-glut","14":"tag-venezuela"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nTrump - Thoughtful Journalism About Energy's Future<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"President Donald Trump justified the raid on Venezuela with a promise to revive Venezuela\u2019s moribund oil industry.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/energi.media\/news\/trump-says-hell-unleash-venezuelas-oil-but-who-wants-it\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Trump - Thoughtful Journalism About Energy's Future\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"President Donald Trump justified the raid on Venezuela with a promise to revive Venezuela\u2019s moribund oil industry.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/energi.media\/news\/trump-says-hell-unleash-venezuelas-oil-but-who-wants-it\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Thoughtful Journalism About Energy's Future\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/energimedia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-01-06T19:24:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/energi.media\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Getty-Images-via-Forbes.webp\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"709\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"473\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/webp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Energi Staff\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@EnergiMedia\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@EnergiMedia\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Energi Staff\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"8 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/energi.media\\\/news\\\/trump-says-hell-unleash-venezuelas-oil-but-who-wants-it\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/energi.media\\\/news\\\/trump-says-hell-unleash-venezuelas-oil-but-who-wants-it\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Energi Staff\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/energi.media\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/07051d0cfb14da284c97fb8ff214caf7\"},\"headline\":\"Trump says he\u2019ll unleash Venezuela\u2019s oil. 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