Following US strikes on a Venezuelan vessel that resulted in the deaths of 11 people on September 2, the Trump administration has announced plans to continue conducting military operations against Latin American drug cartels.
Venezuela, a nation of 30 million people, has a complex relationship with the United States, which has been impacted by political, security, and oil disputes.
Venezuela’s oil economy, which has the largest proven oil reserves in the world, generates only a small portion of its revenue today from crude exports, but nowhere else does that tension emerge more clearly.
Venezuela’s oil reserves are how much?
Venezuela has the largest known oil reserves, with an estimated 303 billion barrels (Bbbl) as of 2023.
Saudi Arabia is second with 267. 2 billion pounds, followed by Canada, which has a 164. 6 billion pounds, and Iran, which has 208. 6 billion pounds. These four nations collectively account for more than half the world’s oil reserves.
By comparison, the United States has about 55 Bbbl, which is ninth on the global scale. Venezuela’s reserves are, as a result, more than five times as large as those of the US.
About 1.73 trillion barrels of crude oil are estimated to be globally’s proven oil reserves, which measure the amount of crude oil that can be economically recovered using modern technology.
Venezuela’s oilfields are located where?
The Orinoco Belt, a vast region in Venezuela’s eastern region that covers roughly 55, 000 square kilometers (21, 235 square miles) is where the country’s oil reserves are concentrated primarily.
Extra-heavy crude oil is highly viscous and dense, making it much more expensive and difficult to extract than conventional crude. This region’s oil needs advanced methods like steam injection and blending with lighter crude to make it marketable.
Extra-heavy crude typically sells at a discount compared to lighter, sweeter crude because of its density and sulphur content.
PDVSA (Petroleos de Venezuela, SA), the state-owned oil company that oversees the majority of the Orinoco Belt operations, is the main oil producer in the nation. Venezuela’s ability to fully exploit its vast reserves has historically been hampered by ageing infrastructure, underinvestment, mismanagement, and the effects of international sanctions, all of which have led to a decline in its ability to do so.
Thanks to extensive government subsidies, Venezuela has some of the lowest gasoline (petrol) prices in the world. The cost of 95 octane gasoline is 0.84 Venezuelan bolivars per litre as of September 2025, or $0.04 per litre or $0.13 per gallon. This is slightly more expensive than gasoline does in Libya and Iran, two other important oil-producing nations, where the price is $0.03 per litre or $0.11 per gallon. For comparison, the average cost of gasoline is $ 1.29 per liter or $ 4.88 per gallon worldwide.
Venezuela exports how much oil?
Venezuela exported only $4.05 billion worth of crude oil in 2023, according to data from the Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC). Saudi Arabia ($181 billion), the US ($125 billion), and Russia ($122 billion) are among the major exporters with this figure.
Venezuela exports smaller amounts of refined petroleum products, such as gasoline and diesel, despite its potential as a result of its ageing refinery infrastructure, technical difficulties, and sanctions.
Why have oil exports decreased over time?
Venezuela joined OPEC when it first started up on September 14, 1960, and was one of its founding members. A group of important oil-exporting nations, known as OPEC, collaborate to control supply and affect global oil prices.
After PDVSA was established in 1976 and foreign oil companies became nationalized, the nation was once a major oil exporter. Venezuela, one of America’s largest foreign oil sources, supplied roughly 1.5 to 2 million barrels per day to the United States in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
After Hugo Chavez was elected president in 1998, exports began to decline sharply as he rebuilt the nation’s oil industry, nationalized assets, restructured PDVSA, and gave domestic and political goals precedence over traditional export markets. Production decreased as a result of political instability, PDVSA mismanagement, and underinvestment in infrastructure.
When the Trump administration tightened sanctions in the US first in 2017 and then in 2019, the situation worsened under President Nicolas Maduro, Hugo Chavez’s replacement. Venezuela’s ability to export crude to the US was further hampered by these restrictions, which also limited access to international financial markets and further hampered Venezuela’s ability to export oil.
Venezuela’s oil trade almost completely stopped in the US as a result, and it moved much of it to China, where it became its main buyer, along with other nations like India and Cuba.
Venezuela’s oil exports reach nine-month highs.
The US Department of the Treasury granted Chevron, one of the largest multinational energy companies in the country, a short-term license to resume Venezuela’s limited oil production and exports after more than three years of oil shipments. Due to strict limitations on the amount of money that could be made from these activities, Chevron resumed some oil production and exports, but only on a temporary scale.
The Biden administration continued to renew Chevron’s license in 2023, allowing it to run limited operations in Venezuela. A wider plan included resuming operations as part of a pressured Venezuelan government to make political concessions as well as increase global oil supplies.
The Venezuelan government did not receive any direct benefits from the oil revenues, despite the license allowing Chevron to resume its cooperation with Venezuela’s state-owned oil company. However, the US sanctions kept the scope of operations restricted.
Following a successful campaign for re-election in January 2025, President Trump issued an executive order in March 2025 imposing a 25% tariff on all goods imported into the United States from any nation that directly or indirectly imports Venezuelan oil. In spite of US sanctions, this initiative was intended to put pressure on nations like China, Russia, and India, which had been boosting trade with Venezuela. The tariff attempted to isolate the Maduro regime economically while limiting the flow of Venezuelan oil into global markets.
Reliance Industries in India stopped purchasing Venezuelan oil, but China continued to import despite the threat of tariffs.
