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<\/p>\nThe US\u2019s seizure of Venezuela\u2019s oil assets casts doubt over the fate of the $150 billion due to Caracas over the next decade, according to new analysis by Global Witness<\/p>\n
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Westend61. Getty Images<\/p>\n
Despite\u00a0crumbling oil infrastructure degraded by decades of underinvestment, corruption and US\u00a0sanctions,\u00a0Venezuela was still producing 1.5 million barrels of oil equivalent a day at the end of last year.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
According to Global Witness analysis of Rystad Energy data, the Venezuelan government\u2019s take \u2013 revenues\u00a0owed\u00a0to the state from production \u2013 was some $13 billion in 2025.<\/p>\n
Global Witness estimates that oil and gas production in the\u00a0country\u00a0could\u00a0generate\u00a0$150 billion for the Venezuelan treasury over the next 10 years (2026-2035).\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
While it\u00a0is\u00a0unclear\u00a0how much\u00a0Venezuela can expect to earn from an oil sector under US occupation, signals from<\/a> oil majors<\/a>\u00a0cast doubt over\u00a0the\u00a0willingness of foreign oil companies to reinvest\u00a0back into the South American country,\u00a0which under President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro saw the poverty rate surge above 90%<\/a>\u00a0at its peak.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Oil revenues have historically\u00a0contributed tens of billions<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0Venezuela\u2019s\u00a0national economy,\u00a0although huge sums were squandered<\/a>\u00a0or embezzled<\/a>\u00a0under Maduro\u2019s oppressive rule.\u00a0Trump\u2019s colonialist seizure of Venezuela\u2019s most profitable resource risks\u00a0continuing\u00a0to deny\u00a0millions of Venezuelans the proceeds from its extraction.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n Although Venezuela\u2019s state oil firm PDVSA\u00a0doesn\u2019t\u00a0publish its accounts, Reuters reported<\/a>\u00a0in July the company made $17.5 billion from oil sales abroad in 2024.<\/p>\n Venezuelans need democratic and transparent control of their resource revenues, not a neo-colonial wealth grab<\/p>\n \n Patrick Galey, head of Fossil Fuels investigations at Global Witness\n <\/p>\n Since the US invasion, reports suggest<\/a>\u00a0that the interim government in Caracas\u00a0could\u00a0relax laws mandating\u00a0that\u00a0all oil sales be conducted by PDVSA.\u00a0New oil production guidelines, set to be passed into law<\/a>\u00a0this week,\u00a0leave huge questions about how oil revenues will reach the citizens of Venezuela.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cTrump\u2019s move to seize Venezuela\u2019s oil is quite simply resource theft writ large. Not only does it add further to the US’s climate debt burden, but it funnels vast wealth to Trump\u2019s billionaire cronies, off the backs of millions of impoverished Venezuelans,” says Patrick Galey, head of Fossil Fuels investigations<\/a> at Global Witness.<\/p>\n “It’s deplorable to see the world’s richest nation \u2013 and history’s largest polluter \u2013 enact this nakedly colonial plunder. After decades of mismanagement, Venezuelans need democratic and transparent control of their resource revenues, not a neo-colonial wealth grab. The country\u2019s problems will not be solved by putting a corrupt national elite under the thumb of a corrupt international one.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is only one constituent who should decide how the proceeds from Venezuela\u2019s natural resources are spent: the Venezuelan people.\u201d<\/p>\n Historic oil spills around Venezuela’s Maracaibo\u00a0Lake have had a devastating effect\u00a0on local wildlife. Getty Images<\/p>\n The US Department of Energy<\/a>\u00a0says that under the terms of Trump\u2019s “energy deal”<\/a> struck on 6 January, \u201call proceeds from the sale of Venezuelan crude oil and\u00a0oil\u00a0products will settle first in U.S. controlled accounts at globally recognised banks to guarantee the legitimacy and integrity of the ultimate distribution of proceeds.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n An executive order<\/a>\u00a0signed on 9 January states that the White House views Venezuelan oil revenue \u201cas the sovereign property of the Government of Venezuela held in custody by the United States.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Experts\u00a0have\u00a0questioned the validity of such an arrangement,\u00a0and\u00a0Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren said<\/a>\u00a0there was \u201cno basis in law\u201d for Trump to sell assets seized by the US military.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The Trump administration<\/a>\u00a0says it is \u201cselectively rolling back sanctions to enable the transport and sale of Venezuelan crude and oil products\u201d and has promised to \u201cauthorize the import of select oilfield equipment, parts and services to\u00a0immediately\u00a0offset decades of production decline.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n We\u2019re\u00a0going to be using oil, and\u00a0we\u2019re\u00a0going to be taking oil<\/p>\n \n President Donald Trump\n <\/p>\n Trump himself signalled US control could last for years, telling The New York Times<\/a>: \u201cWe\u2019re\u00a0going to be using oil, and\u00a0we\u2019re\u00a0going to be taking oil.\u00a0We\u2019re\u00a0getting oil prices down, and\u00a0we\u2019re\u00a0going to be giving money to Venezuela, which they desperately need.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Yet the sheer cost of\u00a0maintaining\u00a0Venezuelan output means Western majors are reticent<\/a>\u00a0to commit to long-term investment in the country\u2019s oil system, to the extent that Trump has suggested US taxpayers could underwrite<\/a>\u00a0any\u00a0initial\u00a0spend.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Venezuela\u2019s crude oil is heavy and sour<\/a>,\u00a0and has an outsized impact<\/a>\u00a0on climate\u00a0change due to gas flaring,\u00a0venting\u00a0and leaks during its production.<\/p>\n Oil spills<\/a>, particularly in the\u00a0field-dense Orinoco basin<\/a>\u00a0in the\u00a0centre of the country, the northern\u00a0Falc\u00f3on\u00a0state,\u00a0and around Maracaibo\u00a0Lake in the northwest<\/a>,\u00a0have had a devastating effect<\/a>\u00a0on local wildlife.\u00a0<\/p>\n MethodologyThe data covering oil and gas production for 2015-2035 was sourced from energy business intelligence agency Rystad Energy\u2019s\u00a0UCube\u00a0database.\u00a0UCube\u00a0is an integrated field-by-field database of the global upstream oil and gas market, covering the time span from 1900 to 2100. Rystad\u2019s data is widely referenced by major oil and gas companies, the\u00a0media\u00a0and international bodies such as the IEA.UCube\u00a0takes into account\u00a0oil and gas demand to project asset-level supply. Projections are based on data sources including company reporting (e.g. earnings and profits reporting) and policies, government sources, energy service reporting, energy agencies and academic research and news articles. Where reported data is unavailable, data is modelled based on the above sources and supported by a comprehensive database of global oil and gas fields.Data for this analysis was accessed on 21 January\u00a02026\u00a0and come from Rystad\u2019s\u00a0January 2026\u00a0database. \u00a0There\u00a0are several caveats to the figures, including the modelling of government take being used to pay some of Venezuela\u2019s substantial national debts,\u00a0estimating\u00a0government take during a period of sanctions is inherently complex,\u00a0and a base-case oil price assumption of USD$70\/bbl.\u201cGovernment\u00a0take\u201d\u00a0refers to the\u00a0portion\u00a0of cash flow that is directed\u00a0to\u00a0government, including\u00a0fiscal parameters such as royalty, government profit, and income tax\u00a0from production.\u00a0Main\u00a0sources of government take include: Royalty (including all taxes based on revenues, but not profits, such as royalty and export taxes); government profit oil (including payments to governments or national oil companies through\u00a0government profit oil, applicable to profit-sharing contracts); income tax (all taxes related to profits and revenues minus\u00a0deductible\u00a0costs, such as corporate\u00a0tax, petroleum tax and other windfall taxes.Government take calculation\u00a0also\u00a0takes into account\u00a0cost recovery, cost recovery carried forward from previous years, and other taxes such as withholding and windfall taxes.<\/p>\n Authors<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The US\u2019s seizure of Venezuela\u2019s oil assets casts doubt over the fate of the $150 billion due to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":434653,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-434652","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-united-states-of-america","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","14":"tag-us","15":"tag-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=434652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434652\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"aerial](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/MaracaiboLake_oil_spill.width-800.jpg\")
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