{"id":192697,"date":"2025-12-07T02:26:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T02:26:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/maduro-says-the-real-reason-for-trumps-venezuela-fixation-is-oil-is-he-right-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2025-12-07T02:26:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T02:26:11","slug":"maduro-says-the-real-reason-for-trumps-venezuela-fixation-is-oil-is-he-right-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/maduro-says-the-real-reason-for-trumps-venezuela-fixation-is-oil-is-he-right-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"Maduro says the real reason for Trump\u2019s Venezuela fixation is oil \u2013 is he right? – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

The South American country facing a huge US military buildup has almost a fifth of known global reserves
Visual guide to US military presence in the Caribbean<\/a>
Venezuela\u2019s dictator, Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, says the real motive behind the massive US military buildup<\/a> in the Caribbean is oil: his country has the largest proven reserves in the world.
The US state department denies<\/a> this, insisting that the airstrikes on boats that have killed more than 80 people and the vast military deployment off South America are part of a campaign against drug trafficking.
Either way, Donald Trump seems bent on regime change in Venezuela<\/a> \u2013 a country whose main allies are China, Russia and Iran, and one that has endured a deep economic collapse that triggered the region\u2019s largest migration crisis.
However, Trump has proved happy to reach an understanding with authoritarian leaders elsewhere, and airstrikes on small boats in the Caribbean are unlikely to have much impact on the flow of drugs \u2013 most of which enter the country through Mexico \u2013 leading critics of the US president to conclude that there must be another motive at work.
Colombia\u2019s leftist president, Gustavo Petro \u2013 who is himself in an increasingly bitter feud with Trump<\/a> \u2013 has described the three-month campaign against Caracas as \u201ca negotiation about oil\u201d<\/a>, arguing that Trump \u201cis not thinking about democratising Venezuela, much less about drug trafficking\u201d.
But analysts familiar with how Venezuela\u2019s oil sector operates say it is not that simple.
\u201cI think oil may be one of the motivations [of the military buildup], but not the main one. It\u2019s just part of the picture,\u201d said Francisco J Monaldi, director of the Latin America Energy Program at Rice University\u2019s Baker Institute for Public Policy, in Houston.
First of all, \u201cVenezuela is a very small player at this point,\u201d he said.
The country has almost a fifth of all known global reserves \u2013 but it accounts for less than 1% of world production. Most of Venezuela\u2019s reserves are \u201cheavy sour\u201d crude, which is more difficult and expensive to extract. Meanwhile, its oil sector has been hamstrung by decades of corruption, mismanagement and underinvestment.
Monaldi estimates that current output of just under 1m barrels a day could rise to 4m or even 5m a day \u2013 but doing so would require about $100bn in investment and would take at least 10 years.
After a strike by oil workers in the early 2000s, Maduro\u2019s predecessor and mentor, Hugo Ch\u00e1vez, dismissed large numbers of workers at the state-owned Petr\u00f3leos de Venezuela Sociedad An\u00f3nima (PDVSA) and consolidated government control of the company.
His government later decreed that PDVSA must hold at least 51% ownership and operational control of all exploration fields, driving away multinationals that had long operated in the country, such as ConocoPhillips and Exxon-Mobil.
Production then went into a steep decline, especially after the US, during Trump\u2019s first term, imposed sanctions banning imports of Venezuelan oil. Joe Biden eased those restrictions in the hope that Maduro would allow a democratic transition, but after last year\u2019s elections \u2013 widely believed to have been stolen by Maduro \u2013 Trump reinstated the sanctions
Even during sanctions, however, the US-based oil giant Chevron<\/a> never fully suspended its operations in Venezuela, maintaining them albeit at drastically reduced levels.
Trump revoked Chevron\u2019s licence, but reversed course in July, ordering that instead of being transferred to Maduro\u2019s regime royalties should be used to cover operational costs and pay down a longstanding Venezuelan government debt to the US company.
Although the Maduro regime\u2019s lack of transparency is reflected in the oil sector, analysts estimate that PDVSA currently holds 50% of operations; Chevron, 25%; 10% is in joint ventures led by China; 10% by Russia; and 5% by European companies.
Since Trump\u2019s recent easing of restrictions, Chevron has been importing between 150,000 and 160,000 barrels a day to the US.
\u201cI believe the main beneficiary of a political change in Venezuela would be Chevron,\u201d said Jos\u00e9 Ignacio Hern\u00e1ndez, a legal scholar and researcher of Venezuela\u2019s oil industry who works with the consultancy Aurora Macro Strategies.
But Hern\u00e1ndez, who was a member of Juan Guaid\u00f3\u2019s team, when the opposition figurehead declared himself interim president in 2019, also rejects the idea that oil is the main focus of the US campaign.
\u201cThe oil sector in Venezuela is destroyed \u2026 It\u2019s not an attractive market in the short term, especially for a country like the US, which already has the world\u2019s largest production,\u201d he added.
Hern\u00e1ndez pointed to recent reports that during talks with US envoys, Maduro offered to open up all existing and future oil and gold projects to US companies<\/a>. \u201cIf Trump wanted to strike a monopoly deal over Venezuela\u2019s oil, he would have accepted Maduro\u2019s offer,\u201d said Hern\u00e1ndez.
Monaldi said that even if there were a change of regime and a US-backed candidate took office, the final decision on whether to invest in Venezuela\u2019s oil would ultimately lie with the companies, which would weigh political and economic stability above all.
\u201cVenezuela has massive resources, a lot of infrastructure and fields that are already developed; one would not go there and explore from scratch \u2026 But, at the same time, there are tons of potential obstacles: the political risks, the country\u2019s history, the fact that the oil is less valuable,\u201d he said.
\u201cSo the obstacles are mostly above ground.\u201d<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The South American country facing a huge US military buildup has almost a fifth of known global reservesVisual guide to US military presence in the CaribbeanVenezuela\u2019s dictator, Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, says the real motive behind the massive US military buildup in the Caribbean is oil: his country has the largest proven reserves in the world.The US […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":192698,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-192697","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-us","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192697\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}