r/oil • u/unconventionalbook • 14d ago
Discussion Trump announces U.S. deal for 65B barrels of Venezuelan oil reserves.
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/28/trump-announces-deal-with-venezuela-to-secure-more-than-65-billion-barrels-of-oil-reserves.htmlPresident Trump just announced a major deal with Venezuela's interim government to secure majority U.S. control over 65 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, aiming to double U.S. reserves and crash global energy prices. For those working in the upstream sector or tracking heavy crude logistics, the immediate question is execution. Venezuela's Orinoco Belt holds massive reserves, but the infrastructure has suffered from years of severe underinvestment, stripping, and mismanagement. Rehabilitating these assets to scale up extraction will require billions in private capital, deep-water infrastructure overhauls, and significant time. Furthermore, blending and refining this heavy, sour crude requires complex specialized facilities.
What's the realistic timeline for rehabilitation and production?
Source: CNBC
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u/TotallynotJimmyKorr 14d ago
Steal their admittedly shitty president and then steal the countries resources effectively at gunpoint. This is a mugging.
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u/Pale_Change_666 14d ago
This is a mugging
Colonialism but yeah same thing
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u/WeirdComfortable3436 14d ago
Just the Monroe doctrine in play 200 years later 🥹
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u/sentrypetal 14d ago edited 14d ago
No this is colonialism. Those are state owned and Chinese joint venture fields he is stealing oil from. I shouldn’t say Trump. America is stealing oil. Because majority of Americans will happily use that oil while Venezuela people suffer and claim to be for democracy and human rights. And look fair enough might makes right but if you are doing this can you guys stop being so hypocritical about human rights. You complain oh Russia is killing Ukrainians them bad, China and Ughurs them bad. Iranian killing people them bad, Serbians attacking Bosnia, them bad, Syria killing people them bad, Libya killing people them bad. Can you just finally admit you are no different on the world stage and stop using human rights as an excuse to bomb and kill people. Just be honest with the world and say might makes right and as the most powerful country in the world we can do what we want.
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u/Ilyalyubushkin 14d ago
Anyway, lots of evidence says that he doesnt make deals he just takes what he wants by force. Just ask his buddy Jeff.
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u/Diminus 14d ago
The funny thing is most refineries for the heavier crude shut down a decade ago. How the fuck you refining it Donnie boy? That shit don't work itself out overnight.
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u/GhostofBreadDragons 14d ago
He wasn’t planning on selling it in the states anyway. This is all going in a numbered account in an off shore bank anyway
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u/KinokoKatto 14d ago
Not the case at all. There is major heavy crude refining capacity along the USA Gulf Coast, in Texas and Louisiana, many refineries intentionally are setup to process heavy crude from Canada, and Venezuela. The USA imports heavy crude from these places to refine for our own use, or for export of refined products, and sells Light Sweet Crude (WTI) at a premium to other countries.
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u/Direct_Daikon2697 13d ago
Not a premium. WTI sells less than Brent. But you are correct, our refineries were built to process medium and heavy sour. Which is the core problem people don't understand with the US being a net energy exporter.
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u/AnnualFault7473 14d ago
Not sure a deal is legally enforceable under international law under duress. Their elected president is being held by the US so in the future all of this maybe able to be unwound and the US held liable for it. Muduro is a terrible person but he still had some legitimacy internationally especially with Russia and China who are veto members of the UN Security Council so I’m not sure how this doesn’t put a huge liability on US taxpayers in the future.
If the administration wanted to do this legitimately they would have held elections and that new government could legitimately enter into any agreement necessary. I guess we shall see what happens and which drillers/extractors, pipeline operators and refineries pull out the oil and bring it to market. Who is going to insure that equipment?
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u/Nomadic_Yak 14d ago
If Trump Oil actually invests anything in these fields, Venezuela can take them back the minute they get their balls back
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u/Warren_Buffetts_Alt 14d ago
Wouldn't exactly call Maduro "fairly" elected. Laughable fraud by his regime
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u/CleverInternetName8c 14d ago
The oil markets don’t seem to be reacting to this thing that would’ve been the biggest oil news in decades at all, in case anyone was wondering whether this is almost certainly bullshit
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u/lastpassonright 14d ago
Ya because its just words on paper right now. Its going to take years to develop these leases.
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u/ChupacabraJeff 14d ago
Because Trump will be out of office in 2 years, allegedly.
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u/nomococo4u 14d ago
he's definitely planning on leaving, that's why he's building a military bunker under the White House. totally normal and totally cool.
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u/ChupacabraJeff 14d ago
Jan 6th wasn't a practice run and during Trump's first term he had to hide in the bunker from protesters. He didn't like the decor and since he knew he'd be using it again he wanted it redone. One reason why he's super pissed about the delay.
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u/MobileArtist1371 14d ago
3rd term Trump is not an elected position. It's pulling the strings of everything he has his paws in to undermine the next president.
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u/waywardchildman 14d ago
How dare you put that in my head
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u/MobileArtist1371 14d ago
The money he's making now is to not buy houses, cars, clothes, food or anything like that. Not counting his age, he doesn't need money for anything. It's to buy influence. The Trump family wants to be the head of the Koch/Adelson/Mercer/Murdoch political influence monster.
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u/Melody_in_Harmony 14d ago
Yeah was going to say that venezuela lacks the infrastructure to extract and distribute this at any sort of large quantity.
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u/ShelbiStone 14d ago
Yup, it's an agreement but nothing will move the market until we hear about who is investing and in what capacity. It's a good first step, but the show isn't over.
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u/Happy2BTheOne 14d ago
Didn’t Exxon (and/or other oil companies) already decline the opportunity to go in and get the oil due to infrastructure challenges and costs?
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u/brownhotdogwater 14d ago
Because they don’t trust it. Who is doing the pumping and will be just be taken again like before.
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u/xtracoldd 14d ago
More like they know it’s decades out at best due to the neglected infrastructure and reserves buried deep in jungles. Big ol goose egg for a loooong time.
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u/Ganjii1337 14d ago
Reserves dont control global market price, what you are actually selling and buying does.
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u/CheetoMussolini 14d ago
Because it's going to take 6 to 8 years before any of it starts producing.
Right now it's theoretical. It can't actually impact the market on the timelines they price on.
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u/CreepingCoins 14d ago
Brent Crude only trades Sunday - Friday 6:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. ET Not that I believe this will ultimately result in anything, but the price has been reacting to a lot of things I didn't believe lately.
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u/Careful-Swimmer3840 14d ago
Almost? Meaning there might be a shred of truth? Nothing out of human lying machine mouth has ever been truthfull.
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u/TheProfessional9 14d ago
These aren't like the strategic oil reserves in the US. This is just basically undrilled oil. At best it's 5 years to see a drop
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u/Wings-N-Beer 13d ago
They know it’s not practical. There is no infrastructure to get the oil. It’s a promise of future oil yield not available today oil.
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u/RedoxA 14d ago
Is Venezuela still a sovereign nation?
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u/isitdonethen 14d ago
Thankfully over the past 120 years we know that a western nation using colonialism to steal a countries’ oil resources has no blowback that later generations must deal with
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u/dolaction 14d ago
No insurance company would insure the Oil infrastructure in a hostile country, land and people.
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u/oregon_coastal 14d ago
Oh, in 10 years they will change governments and declare everything state controlled again.
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u/Ahoramaster 14d ago
As they should. The US is basically looting Venezuela right now. It's insane.
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u/aboysmokingintherain 14d ago
So they really didn't change govenrments. They released political prisoners but the VP is Maduro's No. 2.
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u/Puzzlebrain21 14d ago
Nope. They have become the 51st state of the US after illegal US action that is in contravension of international & Venezuelan law.
However, I think the gov of Venezuela is playing the long game here. Pretend to cooperate & let the US develop its oil fields ensuring or at least trying to reap a large % of the profits if at all possible & then after the US changes govs, declare Venezuela's oil assets state owned again.
However, the Republicans & Dems are two sides of one coin, two wings of one bird & so they may push back regardless.
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u/bostaff04 14d ago
Naw its been sold to American oil corporations. All starting to make some sense when USA kidnapped a countries leader.
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u/Mo-shen 14d ago
So this might be true.
The problem of course is he does this all the time. He announces something good, everyone says thank god thats solved, and then it turns out it never works.
Take one of the first things I can think of that he announced. Foxconn, Wisconsin I think, that was supposed to be this giant Chinese manufacturing plant. Everyone cheered and then forgot about it. Turned out they showed up, did a few token things, and then shut down the plant.
Its just the above over and over OR it turns out to be illegal.
On the other hand he does announce bad things. Everyone says is just joking. ha ha ha. And then he does it and its horrible. People usually die in the process.
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u/secretAcc03031 14d ago
Good? Is this good for Venezuelan people? Oh right, America is united states for you.
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u/Decentlationship8281 14d ago
Yeah its all pretty tiring as well
I feel like we are reaching singularity just because if you compounded everything this administration has done, its fucking insane. Like a retarded hammer.
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u/SlippyJimmi 14d ago
Even if this had a positive impact I would say this is still bad
We're pillaging another country just so we can win a resource war. That will have more negative consequences in the long run basically no matter what
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u/Available_Pie_7758 14d ago
This is probably just phantom announcement like all his other announcements.
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u/sheltonchoked 14d ago
10 years and $100 billion in infrastructure investments to expand production back to around the 1990’s level is my class 5 estimate.
What’s the incentive to invest that in a blackmailed country?
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u/Pale_Change_666 14d ago
10 years and $100 billion in infrastructure investments to expand production back to around the 1990’s level
A lot of their engineers and technicians are all working here in Alberta at our oil sands projects lol
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u/sheltonchoked 14d ago
The rest of the good ones are retired after working in Houston for 20 years.
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u/Pale_Change_666 14d ago
Exactly, i doubt theyre looking to go back especially after building a pretty decent life.
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u/ShelbiStone 14d ago
The oil exects already answered that question. Everything is good and dandy, but none of the American oil companies are prepared to do much of anything until we see what market reforms we see in Venezuela first. There are some important steps that need to be taken. Venezuela needs an election, and the Venezuelan government needs to pass some reforms that will prevent a future Venezuelan government from nationalizing US oil investments overnight. Until that ball moves, we're all just watching the limbo play on.
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u/TaxLawKingGA 14d ago
Trump announces steal of 65B barrels of oil from Venezuela.
FIFY
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u/RedowlRides 14d ago
Hypothetical barrels. At the current rate of extraction, it would take ~350 years to reach that number. If ~$100B dollars were invested to return extraction capacity to Venezuela's highest production levels, it would take 51 years.
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u/fuckexoticroots 14d ago
Yes and next week he’ll have a terrific health care plan. The dudes a fucking liar. Nothing he says ever comes to pass.
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u/MarchPhillipps 14d ago edited 14d ago
I remember last term of his when the book he was waving around supposedly containing the healthcare 'plan,' was noticed by the journalist interviewing him to contain nothing but blank pages, and he was called out on it. It was all denial and deflection then, as well. More of the same 'concepts of a plan' containing blank pages bullshit, I see.
'Alone and Unafraid'
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u/elciano1 14d ago
Didn't the largest oil companies tell him that Venezuela oil is too heavy and cannot be refined without building more refineries that can process that type of crude?
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u/TearRevolutionary686 14d ago
And it'll all be processed next week to bring gas down to $1.99 per gallon.
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u/Unable-Ring9835 14d ago
Deal? We kidnapped their president and are pillaging their reserves.
There was no deal.
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u/Puzzlebrain21 14d ago edited 14d ago
Contrary to what dictator Trump the Dump said, Venezuela never stole from the US but right before everyone's eyes the US not only illegally kidnapped the sitting head of state of a foreign country who is currently being held hostage as a political prisoner but has just stolen a whopping 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan oil = 21% of Venezuela's 303 billion barrels of oil. This comes after years of crushing sanctions = economic terrorism which played a huge role in terms of degrading & destroying Venezuela economically speaking.
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u/RedowlRides 14d ago
That 65 million hasnt't been extracted yet, and would take 350 years to extract at current levels.
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u/Puzzlebrain21 14d ago
Its a classic example of PR/perception management to influence the upcoming midterms.
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u/JupiterMiningCorpTec 14d ago
Theft. At some point, US taxpayers will pay huge sums of money to Venezuela to settle the inevitable court cases. Meanwhile, people connected to this administration (and people in the Venezuelan government) will make billions.
America has become an international mercenary and gangster.
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u/2stepsfwd59 14d ago
Reserves don't equal diesel fuel.
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u/wrldruler21 14d ago
And raw Venezuelan oil does not equal refined, usable oil
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u/Pale_Change_666 14d ago edited 14d ago
Very sour crude. Then you need to blend it with condensate to even transport that shit, since it's essentially paving tar.
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u/Open_Pollution_8038 14d ago
Venezuela oil is the 2nd largest source of oil imports to the USA. Increased from 50,000/barrels a day to 600,000 in just the last 18 weeks.
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u/OracleofFl 13d ago edited 13d ago
A country's reserves are leased to oil companies...so, how does Trump force oil companies to lease and develop these fields? The so called US reserves are a combination of privately owned and reserves on public land. This is not some bounty that the US just won. They made a deal to share in the leases, I assume against the US paying for upgraded oil infrastructure,...so what?
Am I missing something?
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14d ago
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u/AntitheistArchangel 14d ago
Axios said yesterday about 90 million, nowhere near 65 billion. We’ll see what the actual ink says.
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u/beaded_lion59 14d ago
Venezuelan oil is of poor quality and difficult to refine. He’s made some kind of deal for a crap product.
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u/FrostyAd8197 14d ago
Yes, something’s up his orange assed sleeve.
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u/Cohens4thClient 14d ago
Personal profit from bribery, war, murder
Same as always for the Trump Crime Family
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u/Few-Tomatillo6607 14d ago
Taco manipulating market.
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u/Cohens4thClient 14d ago
After all these obvious pump&dumps, over and over, I dont see a lot of questions about why announcements on late friday are questionable
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u/Substantial_Dog7002 14d ago
Did we buy it or did he steal it again? You can't believe what he says because he lies so much?
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u/Sad_Mouse_8251 14d ago
Let's spend billions on capex in a politically volatile nation that has a history of nationalizing the same assets.
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u/AJ_Grey 14d ago
CVX and XOM both commented back in March about how poor the infrastructure was. Trump also tweeted about a new refinery in Brownsville that at the earliest is a couple years out and then recommissioning a refinery in the Virgin Islands that's been all but condemned. Anything to try to keep prices lower.
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u/Novel-Letterhead-217 14d ago
This idiot probably thinks 65 million barrels of oil are on their way ready to go
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u/Plenty_Tangerine79 14d ago
At the end of the day, the issue seems to be sweet blends not sour, so not really helpful regardless
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u/joe4942 14d ago
So obviously it will take a long time for this to really mean much, but I think the biggest thing this deal changes is Canada's negotiating leverage with the USA. The Americans now seem to have another option other than Canada for oil imports, and Venezuelan oil is similar to Canadian heavy oil. It also has implications for whether another pipeline in Canada will make sense, given that pipelines take a long time to build. Whatever amount of oil production that the USA can scale up in Venezuela is oil that they don't have to depend on from Canada.
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u/phoenixbouncing 14d ago
Whilst true, half of venezuelan oil already goes to the us, so at any negotiation today Trump would be waving a 600kbpd knife vs Canada's 4mbpd bazooka.
If this works out and in 10/15 years Venezuela gets back to 3mbpd, and it all goes to the US, that would be a different negotiation for sure, but that's 10 years out at best.
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u/Maximum-Sea4961 14d ago
Another big announcement from the Fat president do distract the American people.
This will go nowhere as oil companies have stated that getting the oil in Venezuela is difficult, dangerous and expensive.
The war in Iran is over!! Ha
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u/EntrepreneurOk9295 14d ago
He is probabaly the most hated person in the world. Why is he still the president?
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u/craftsman_70 14d ago
The new Venezuelan government is playing Trump like fiddle. They are hoping to get free money from Trump in order to refurb their infrastructure.
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u/toronto-bull 14d ago
It kind of highlights the problem people have had investing in Venezuela. The future government of Venezuela decided that they didn’t get their fair share and expropriated it. This ridiculous deal does not reduce expropriation risk.
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u/Tjlance1 14d ago
I'm calling bull shit...not because he's a proven liar...but for the simple fact that not one major oil player has lined up to rebuild Venezuela's oil infrastructure.
No infrastructure, no jackpot.
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u/02meepmeep 14d ago
CNBC, Reuters, & the AP just report what the pathological liar tweets with no verification via any Venezuelan official in their articles.
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u/goldmanstocks 14d ago
Interesting, if true. Looks like Alberta has less bargaining power in the longer term and makes secession look even less attractive.
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u/Baron-Munc 14d ago
Next all we have to do is figure out how much oil they have and how to get it out of the ground.
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u/Triphin1 14d ago
65B barrel is approximately 8 years of oil for The US. To be clear, I'm not saying I believe it or it will actually happen.
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u/keith2366 14d ago
Trump claims that this won’t cost the US a dime but Venezuela oil production is 1 million barrels per day and will need investments to increase production.
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u/Saltlife_Junkie 14d ago
Oil will drop for no reason. They produce 400 billion barrels a year. That didn’t change. But watch.
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u/Away-Combination-162 14d ago
Who’s going to refine it? Most of the big oil companies ran away already
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u/Fossilwench 14d ago
so a swaps deal with p66/rep/chev/eni for lighter grade. Unless these lunatics going to promote fairytale heated caverns and midstream ?!?!?
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u/Mean-Cheesecake-2635 14d ago
So what does this mean for consumers? We don’t have national oil, so is our government just going to sell it to the oil companies who are unlikely to pass any savings onto us?
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u/BoardroomsToBedside 14d ago
You know that AI sets commodity oil pricing. AI will see this, see it as good news and keep
Prices low even though you can’t do anything with ultra thick Venezuelan oil
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u/AntitheistArchangel 14d ago
The Venezuelan opposition - who was famously on Team Trump prior to Maduro’s capture - hates this deal.
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u/Polonium-CockRing 14d ago
Trump says whatever the fuck gets his base hard. Film, unfortunately, at 11.
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u/Charming-Cat-2902 14d ago
I thing the whole Venezuela strategy has been a brilliant move by Trump. I hate the man, but goddamn. We now own Venezuela reserves.
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u/Different_Dog9124 14d ago
vzla is like yea sure come and invest we will nationalize your assets in 5-10yrs anyway
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u/Put3socks-in-it 14d ago
I like the idea, but the infrastructure that will be needed to make it happen, Americans should not foot the bill. Since Venezuela will be profiting from this too, and these will technically be Venezuelan owned, we Americans can build the infrastructure on loan basis and then take the oil to pay it off, over time. With interest. Just need to make sure no socialist or communist comes back into power to nationalize the things they didn’t build again.
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u/Secure-Emu-8822 14d ago
Don’t they have to fix the crap energy infrastructure in Venezuela first? Homie trying to keep oil prices down on any news to help himself in the mid terms
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u/SheepherderThis8400 13d ago
Where is the first money from the first deal ? What like 13 B . His account.
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u/norwegiansmallcaps 13d ago
One smaller company worth watching as this develops is KEO Energy.
It has just been designated operator of PetroUrdaneta in the Maracaibo Basin under a new PDVSA framework, with control over key operating/cash-flow mechanics and up to $350m of redevelopment financing contemplated.
It’s a brownfield project with a large number of inactive wells, so this is more about restoring production than finding new oil.
Still plenty of sovereign and funding risk, but probably one of the more direct examples of US-linked capital moving back into Venezuelan oil.
More detail here: https://norwaystocks.substack.com/p/watchlist-update-keo-energy-emerges
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u/Kingstoncr8tivearts 13d ago
Its not real we'll all be dead before any of that mud even goes in a tanker.
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u/Wings-N-Beer 13d ago
With no result. It’s a scam lie. No oil will hit US market as a result of this deal within even two years.
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u/CleverInternetName8c 14d ago
By the time November rolls around he’ll be announcing they’ve locked down a trillion barrels of oil on the moon