\n<\/p>\n
The US plans to control Venezuela\u2019s oil sales \u201cindefinitely\u201d after laying claim to 50m barrels of blockaded crude and seizing a Russian oil tanker linked to the South American country.<\/p>\n
The White House already plans to sell up to $3bn (\u00a32.2bn) worth of Venezuelan crude stranded in tankers and storage facilities into the oversupplied global market after the American military\u2019s capture of Nicol\u00e1s Maduro.<\/p>\n
It confirmed on Wednesday that it also plans to retain control of all sales of future crude production from Venezuela\u2019s vast oil reserves. The US energy secretary, Chris Wright, said the US would take payment for the oil and use the proceeds \u201cto benefit the Venezuelan people\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to market the crude coming out of Venezuela,\u201d Wright said. \u201cFirst this backed-up store of oil, and then indefinitely going forward we will sell the production that comes out of Venezuela in the marketplace.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wright set out the plans for long-term control of Venezuela\u2019s oil industry as the US seized a Russian-flagged oil tanker that had been on course to travel to Venezuela from Iran before it turned back towards the Atlantic.<\/p>\n
The vessel, the Marinera – previously known as the Bella 1, is understood to be part of the \u201cshadow fleet\u201d moving oil for Russia, Iran and Venezuela, and the high-stakes operation is likely to risk confrontation with the Kremlin after Moscow reportedly dispatched a submarine to safeguard the vessel.<\/p>\n
A second tanker, the Sophia, was later seized in the Caribbean. US secretary of state Marco Rubio said that Venezuela\u2019s interim leaders had asked for the oil cargo seized on the ship to be \u201cpart of this deal\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey want the oil that was seized on one of those ships to be part of the deal. They understand that the only way they can move oil and generate revenue and not have economic collapse is if they work with the United States,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
A continuing supply of crude from Venezuela could act as a drag on oil prices, which last year recorded their steepest annual fall since the Covid pandemic and could plummet further as oil producers continue to pump more than is needed by the global economy.<\/p>\n
Global oil prices fell on Wednesday, although they recovered some ground in morning trading in New York. The international benchmark, Brent crude, fell to just over $60 a barrel on Wednesday, while the US oil price was down by 0.5%, at $60.39 a barrel, after falling below $56 earlier.<\/p>\n
The oil grab also raises the prospect of disruption to Venezuela\u2019s oil exports to China, which takes about 80% of its crude exports, potentially forcing Beijing to pay higher prices for its crude and increasing tensions with the White House.<\/p>\n
China\u2019s foreign ministry said on Wednesday that Venezuela \u201cenjoys full and permanent sovereignty over its natural resources and economic activities\u201d, and US demands for the country to hand over its oil \u201cviolate international law, infringe upon Venezuela\u2019s sovereignty, and harm the rights of the Venezuelan people\u201d.<\/p>\n
In a post on his Truth Social platform late on Tuesday, Donald Trump said: \u201cThat money will be controlled by me, as President \u2026 It will be taken by storage ships, and brought directly to unloading docks in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n
Oil graphic<\/p>\n
Trump has said he wants Venezuela\u2019s interim president, Delcy Rodr\u00edguez, to give the US and private companies \u201ctotal access\u201d to Venezuela\u2019s oil industry. He said Wright was in charge of executing the deal, adding that the oil would be taken from ships and sent directly to US ports.<\/p>\n
Wright told a Goldman Sachs energy conference in Miami on Wednesday: \u201cIf we control the flow of oil and the flow of the cash that comes from those sales, we have large leverage. We need \u2026 control of those oil sales to drive the changes that simply must happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
After Saturday morning\u2019s attack on Caracas led to the capture of Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, Trump vowed that US companies would reignite Venezuela\u2019s struggling oil industry.<\/p>\n
US oil executives from Chevron, ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil are expected to meet Trump at the White House on Friday to discuss plans to pour billions of dollars into the industry in Venezuela.<\/p>\n
Chevron is the only US oil company that still operates in the country, after the assets of ConocoPhillips and Exxon were nationalised by the former president Hugo Ch\u00e1vez in the mid-2000s, a move Trump has described as \u201cthe greatest theft in the history of America\u201d.<\/p>\n
The US oil majors have so far declined to outline publicly any such plans for investment and there is scepticism that big listed companies would be willing to invest in a politically unstable region amid falling global oil prices without iron-clad guarantees that their investments would be protected.<\/p>\n
There is also scepticism over whether Venezuela, which holds the world\u2019s largest reserves of crude, could once again produce meaningful amounts after years of neglect and corruption that caused its output to fall from highs of 3.5m barrels of oil a day 25 years ago to about 1m bpd \u2013 or less than 1% of the global market.<\/p>\n
The multibillion-dollar investment needed to increase Venezuela\u2019s oil production to the levels of its heyday in the late 1990s could require 15 years of work to repair the country\u2019s degraded infrastructure and capital spending of up to $185bn, according to analysis by Rystad Energy, a global consultancy.<\/p>\n
The US Department of State was approached for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The US plans to control Venezuela\u2019s oil sales \u201cindefinitely\u201d after laying claim to 50m barrels of blockaded crude and seizing a Russian oil tanker linked to the South American country. The White House already plans to sell up to $3bn (\u00a32.2bn) worth of Venezuelan crude stranded in tankers and storage facilities into the oversupplied global<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40692,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[2638,671,13543,268,4424,4723,2168],"class_list":{"0":"post-40691","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-continue","9":"tag-house","10":"tag-indefinitely","11":"tag-oil","12":"tag-supplying","13":"tag-venezuela","14":"tag-white"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/40692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}