US says it has reached deal for majority control of Venezuelan oil reserves
The United States says it has reached an agreement with Venezuela that would give Washington majority control over a substantial portion of the South American country's oil reserves. The announcement, made on Friday, centres on more than 65 billion barrels of proven reserves and involves 17 strategic oil fields. Details of the arrangement have not been made public, and the deal has already drawn criticism as a takeover of Venezuela's resources.
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President Donald Trump said his government and that of Venezuela's interim president, Delcy Rodriguez, had agreed to the arrangement. In a social media post, he described it as the "biggest oil deal in world history" and said it would "more than double" American oil reserves. The US government has said it will partner with a private business to extract the fuel.
However, the terms, ownership structure and operational timeline remain unclear. The reported scale of the agreement is significant because Venezuela holds some of the world's largest known oil deposits. US government estimates cited in the supporting material put Venezuela's proven reserves at 303 billion barrels as of 2023, with about 17% of the world's oil supply believed to be in the country.
The 65-billion-barrel figure announced by Trump would amount to roughly a fifth of Venezuela's proven reserves. Analysts quoted in the source questioned whether that number will have much relevance to any eventual deal, given the lack of fixed terms. The announcement also carries wider geopolitical weight because it touches on one of the most sensitive areas in US-Venezuela relations: control of energy resources.
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Washington has long viewed Venezuela's oil wealth as strategically important, while Caracas has faced years of economic strain and political tension. Any agreement that shifts control of major fields would have implications not only for bilateral ties, but also for global oil markets and the balance of influence over a major energy producer. The supporting material says the arrangement covers 17 strategic oil fields, but it does not explain where those fields are located or how they would be managed.
It also says the US government plans to work with a private business to extract the fuel, without naming the company. That leaves open key questions about how much authority Washington would actually have, and how the deal would be implemented in practice. The announcement comes against a backdrop of Venezuela's long-running role as a major oil state and the continuing debate over how its reserves are developed.
The country is described in the source as having the largest known oil deposit in the world, and the reported agreement would place a substantial share of that resource under US control. For Washington, the claim that the deal could expand American reserves is politically significant, even as outside analysts question the figures being cited. For now, the main uncertainty is what the agreement contains and whether it will be carried out in the form described by Trump.
No fixed terms have been released, and the source says the real details remain almost entirely unknown. What happens next will depend on whether further official information is published, whether the reported fields are identified, and whether the arrangement faces political or legal challenge.
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