The United States says it will keep control Venezuela’s oil “indefinitely”, having not given a timetable for how long it intends to run the country.
Energy secretary Chris Wright said the United States plans to maintain significant control over Venezuela’s oil industry, including by overseeing the sale of the country’s production “indefinitely”.
“Going forward we will sell the production that comes out of Venezuela into the marketplace,” Mr Wright said at a Goldman Sachs energy conference near Miami. Mr Wright’s remarks came after Donald Trump said Venezuela would soon hand over tens of millions of barrels of oil to the United States.
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AFP via Getty Images)
The White House is organizing a meeting on Friday with US oil company executives to discuss Venezuela, which the Trump administration has been pressuring to open its vast-but-struggling oil industry more widely to American investment and know-how. Representatives of Exxon, Chevron and ConocoPhillips are expected to attend the White House meeting.
Officials in Caracas announced that at least 24 Venezuelan security officers were killed in the dead-of-night US military operation to capture President Nicolás Maduro and spirit him to the United States to face drug charges.
And the country’s acting president, Delcy Rodriguez, has pushed back on Trump, who earlier this week warned she’d face an outcome worse than Maduro’s if she does not “do what’s right” and overhaul Venezuela into a country that aligns with US interests, including by granting access to American energy companies.
Meanwhile the US has seized a Venezuela-linked oil tanker which is travelling off British waters, an official has said. US forces boarded the Marinera, a Russian-flagged vessel previously known as Bella-1, on Wednesday, as it travelled north and eastwards through the waters between Iceland and Scotland.
The vessel was said to have escaped Trump’s “total naval blockade” of Venezuela, put in place in December. Several US military planes and British surveillance aircraft have been seen patrolling the skies in the vicinity of the oil tanker in recent days as it travelled through the North Atlantic.
A US official said that American law enforcement officials are now aboard the Marinera, supported by the nation’s armed forces. There are no indications so far of gunfire during the seizure of the vessel.
The US European Command said the tanker had been “seized in the North Atlantic pursuant to a warrant issued by a US federal court after being tracked by USCGC Munro”. It continued: “This seizure supports (Mr Trump’s) Proclamation targeting sanctioned vessels that threaten the security and stability of the Western Hemisphere.”
Pete Hegseth, the US war secretary, wrote on social media site X: “The blockade of sanctioned and illicit Venezuelan oil remains in FULL EFFECT — anywhere in the world.”