Trump’s Historic Deal Fails to Fool Oil Traders

Trump’s historic deal for Venezuelan oil is already facing questions about who would control the fields, how they would be developed and whether Caracas’s revenue estimate stands up. No agreement text has been made public, and US accounts of its ownership terms conflict.

What Trump’s historic deal promises, and who would own it

Trump announced the agreement on Friday, saying Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had negotiated with Venezuela’s interim President Delcy Rodriguez. His account described majority US control over more than 65 billion barrels of the country’s oil reserves.

Rodriguez called the arrangement historic in a televised address Saturday night. She described a 25 year agreement covering 17 oilfields, with production targeted at 1.5 million barrels a day. Neither government has published the contract, leaving the central terms open to competing interpretations.

One account from a US official described Washington as holding a 55 percent effective interest in a newly formed private company that would operate the fields. Under that version, the US would also have the right to buy oil at cost for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

A separate account described a 35 percent passive stake in North American Blue Energy Partners, or NABEP, a company already producing around 200,000 barrels a day in Venezuela. It said the stake would be financed through Pentagon penny warrants, rather than a direct purchase of company shares. The Pentagon rejected that description within a day. Spokesman Sean Parnell said the department’s Office of Strategic Capital does not take equity stakes in private companies.

The two descriptions have not been reconciled, and there is no public contract to resolve the difference. The uncertainty matters because a majority operating interest and a passive minority share are not the same arrangement. For now, the stated production target and the question of US control remain claims by officials, not terms that can be checked against a released agreement.

NABEP is led by Alejandro Betancourt, a Venezuelan oil trader with longstanding political ties in Caracas. Weeks before the deal was announced, a buyer linked to Betancourt took over a minority interest in the company from Florida oil trader Harry Sargeant III. US allies had accused Sargeant of helping sustain the former Maduro government. A few days after the sale closed, the US Treasury Department froze Sargeant’s offshore holding company.

Those events do not establish wrongdoing in the new arrangement. They do, however, place a complicated ownership history around a deal whose public terms are still unsettled. Venezuela’s oil sector has long been marked by opaque commercial arrangements, and the latest announcement has not yet supplied the documentation needed to clarify who stands to benefit.

Oil prices and production offer little immediate confirmation

Oil markets did not treat the announcement as an immediate supply shock. Brent crude rose more than 2 percent on Monday morning, but the move followed a US strike on Iranian rocket launchers near the Strait of Hormuz, not news about Venezuelan output. The available market action therefore offered no sign that the agreement had quickly changed expectations for oil supplies.

Turning the announced target into production would be a separate challenge. Much of the oil in Venezuela’s Orinoco Belt is extra heavy and must be blended with lighter diluent before it can travel through pipelines. Raising output depends on more than access to reserves: fields need drilling, maintenance, equipment and infrastructure capable of handling the crude.

Rystad Energy said in July that a 17 percent increase in production by 2028 would require more drilling, extensive well work, improved infrastructure and substantially more rigs. Francisco Monaldi of Rice University’s Baker Institute told NPR that many fields included in the deal are undeveloped and could take years to produce. He described a rapid increase in output as highly unlikely.

Unpaid claims remain a barrier for Exxon and ConocoPhillips

Washington has sought to bring major oil companies back to Venezuela since Maduro’s capture in January. Exxon and ConocoPhillips, however, have unresolved claims dating to the nationalization campaign under former President Hugo Chavez in 2007. Both companies were forced out, then won international arbitration awards that Caracas has not fully paid.

ConocoPhillips is still owed between $10 billion and $12 billion. Its chief executive, Ryan Lance, has said collecting that money is a condition for making any fresh investment in the country. For the companies, the unpaid awards are not a footnote to a new project. They are part of the financial risk that would come before new capital could be committed.

Venezuela’s wider legacy liabilities, including unresolved nationalization claims and defaulted bonds, total close to $170 billion. Those obligations predate the new agreement and complicate the prospect of attracting investors. Chevron, which did not fully leave Venezuela, remains among the companies operating there, alongside smaller independent producers and oilfield service firms prepared to take on greater risk. Exxon has repeatedly described Venezuela as uninvestable.

How Caracas arrived at its $209 billion forecast

Rodriguez’s estimate assumes oil sells for $65 a barrel throughout the 25 year agreement. That assumption is far below Brent crude’s level above $90 at the time of the announcement, though prices can change substantially over a long period. Her calculation gives Venezuela $19 for each barrel produced and puts its total revenue at $209 billion over the contract’s life.

The annual figure looks different from the headline total. Economist Francisco Rodriguez has calculated that $209 billion over 25 years averages about $8.4 billion a year. Venezuela earned $18.4 billion in 2025 alone, when production was barely 941,000 barrels a day. The comparison is not a forecast of future receipts, but it puts the deal’s projected annual income against a recent year of actual revenue.

The proposed $19 per barrel also loses purchasing power over time. Francisco Rodriguez has noted that, after inflation, $19 received in 2051 would be worth roughly $9 in today’s terms. Under fiscal terms established during Chavez’s presidency, the government previously received more than 75 cents of each dollar generated by oil through royalties, taxes and PDVSA dividends. The new estimate therefore needs to be viewed against both the country’s former share of oil income and the obligations it has yet to settle.