In a news conference held on January 3 in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, which was streamed by Sky News, U.S. President Donald Trump revealed that the U.S. is going to rebuild Venezuela’s oil infrastructure, which he said “will cost billions of dollars”.
“Late last night and early today, at my direction, the United States Armed Forces conducted an extraordinary military operation in the capital of Venezuela,” Trump said in the conference, a video of which was available on Sky News’ YouTube page.
“Overwhelming American military power – air, land, and sea – was used to launch a spectacular assault … It was a force against a heavily fortified military fortress in the heart of Caracas to bring outlaw dictator Nicolas Maduro to justice,” he added.
“The men and women of our military, working with U.S. law enforcement, successfully captured Maduro … Maduro and [his wife Cilia] Flores have been indicted in the Southern District of New York … for their campaign of deadly narcoterrorism against the Unites States and its citizens,” he continued.
In the conference, Trump said “we are going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper, and judicious transition”.
“We want peace, liberty, and justice for the great people of Venezuela,” he noted.
“We’re going to stay until such time as, we’re going to run it essentially, until such time as a proper transition can take place. As everyone knows, the oil business in Venezuela has been a bust, a total bust, for a long period of time,” he added.
“They were pumping almost nothing by comparison to what they could have been pumping and what could have taken place. We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country,” he stated.
“We’re going to be running it [Venezuela] with a group and we’re going to make sure it’s run properly. We’re going to rebuild the oil infrastructure, which will cost billions of dollars. It’ll be paid for by the oil companies directly,” he continued.
“They will … be reimbursed for what they’re doing, but that’s going to be paid. And we’re going to get the oil flowing the way it should be. As you know, it was just a minor flow, it was actually a minor flow for what they have, but we’re going to run it properly and we’re going to make sure the people of Venezuela are taken care of,” Trump said.
Trump went on to state in the conference, “in terms of China and Russia … well, Russia when we get things straightened out, but in terms of other countries that want oil, we’re in the oil business”.
“We’re going to sell it to them. We’re not going to say we’re not going to give it to you. In other words, we’ll be selling oil … probably in much larger doses because they couldn’t produce very much because their infrastructure was so bad,” he said.
“So, we’ll be selling large amounts of oil to other countries, many of whom are using it now, but I would say many more will come,” he added.
Also in the conference, Trump stated that “Venezuela unilaterally seized and sold American oil, American assets, and American platforms, costing us billions and billions of dollars”.
“They did this a while ago, but we never had a president that did anything about it. They took all of our property … we built it. And … we never had a president that decided to do anything about it,” he said.
Rigzone has contacted the Consular Section of Venezuela in the United Kingdom and Ireland, the International Press Center of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Department of Information and Press of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the American Petroleum Institute (API) for comment on Trump’s news conference. At the time of writing, none of the above have responded to Rigzone.
In a statement posted on its X page on January 3, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia said, “the U.S. committed an act of armed aggression against Venezuela, which gives rise to deep concern and warrants condemnation”.
A statement posted on the China Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson’s X page on the same day said, “China is deeply shocked by, and strongly condemns, the U.S.’s blatant use of force against a sovereign state and action against its president”.
In a statement posted on her Telegram page on January 3, which was translated from Spanish, Delcy Rodriguez, who is described on the page as Acting President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, said, “Venezuela repudiates and denounces the very serious military aggression by the government of the United States of America”.
In an English statement posted on her Telegram page on January 5, Rodriguez said, “we prioritize moving towards balanced and respectful international relations between the United States and Venezuela, and between Venezuela and other countries in the region, premised on sovereign equality and non-interference”.
“We invite the U.S. government to collaborate with us on an agenda of cooperation oriented towards shared development within the framework of international law to strengthen lasting community coexistence,” Rodriguez added.
A page on Venezuela on the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) website, which was last updated in February 2024, stated that the country had the world’s largest proven crude oil reserves in 2023, “with approximately 303 billion barrels”. The page noted that this accounted for approximately 17 percent of global reserves.
“Despite the sizeable reserves, Venezuela produced 0.8 percent of total global crude oil in 2023,” the EIA page highlighted.
In a statement sent to Rigzone on Monday morning, Naeem Assam, Chief Analyst at Zaye Capital Markets, noted that “oil remains range bound, with Brent near $60.9 per barrel and WTI around $57.4 per barrel, underscoring that macroeconomic weakness is outweighing geopolitical risk”.
“Despite U.S. actions tied to Venezuela and rhetoric from Donald Trump regarding control of Venezuelan oil assets under Nicolas Maduro, price reaction has been muted – clear evidence of headline exhaustion,” he added.
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