President Trump announced what he called the « biggest oil deal in world history, » granting the United States majority control of more than 65 billion barrels of proven oil reserves across 17 oilfields in Venezuela, with the U.S. Department of Defense taking a 55% stake through private producer Blue Energy Partners. The deal involves over $100 billion in investment and could generate more than $209 billion in tax revenues for Venezuela, whose daily production has risen from under 1 million to over 1.2 million barrels this year. Analysts describe the arrangement as « colonial cronyism » that could trigger civil unrest and note that using Venezuelan oil to refill the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve is virtually impossible due to incompatibility between heavy Venezuelan crude and the underground salt cavern storage facilities.
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