US seeks stake in Venezuelan oil fields holding 65bn barrels
Washington says it has secured control rights over Venezuelan oil fields, but the agreement governing them has not been published.
Venezuelan oil workers and communities near the Orinoco Belt and Lake Maracaibo face a vast new extraction project after Washington announced an ownership stake in a company awarded rights over 17 oil fields.
The White House said on 31 August that North American Blue Energy Partners, or NABEP, had received 100-year concessions covering fields with about 65 billion barrels of proven reserves. It said the Pentagon’s Office of Strategic Capital would hold a 35% equity stake in NABEP’s corporate parent, while the US State Department could buy 20% of output at production cost and refuse the sale of the rest.
Two accounts of the same deal
Those terms would give the US government an unusual role in a company operating Venezuelan oil assets. The White House also says it has veto power over board appointments and that most directors must be US citizens, with some oil intended for the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve and military use.
Caracas has described a different arrangement. Interim President Delcy Rodríguez says it is a 25-year bilateral project to develop 17 fields and raise production above 1.5 million barrels a day, not a transfer of ownership of the reserves.
That distinction matters because Venezuela’s constitution says hydrocarbon deposits belong to the Republic and are inalienable public assets. Its 2026 hydrocarbons reform allows private Venezuelan-domiciled firms to carry out oil operations under contracts with state-owned entities, but says direct marketing does not transfer ownership of the reservoir or sovereign rights.
The contract is still missing
The White House says NABEP could invest up to $100 billion and generate $200 billion in Venezuelan tax and royalty payments over 25 years. Rodríguez’s government projects $209.335 billion in state receipts, based on oil at $65 a barrel. Neither figure is an independently verified outcome.
NABEP is owned by Venezuelan businessman Alejandro Betancourt, according to AP. Other firms, including Chevron, Eni, ONGC, GE Vernova and GeoPark, are separately preparing energy agreements under Venezuela’s amended law, Reuters reports.
Washington’s case is that US capital and technology can restore Venezuelan production without a stated taxpayer outlay. Caracas says the project would bring jobs, infrastructure and public revenue while Venezuela keeps its oil. Both claims depend on terms the public has not seen.
No signed agreement, field list, valuation, environmental assessment, labour terms or local consultation plan has been published. The White House has announced 100-year concessions; Caracas has announced a 25-year project. Until the documents are released, the people living and working around these fields are being asked to trust an oil deal whose central terms remain out of public view.
