Venezuela Oil Revenue Projected to Hit $5 Billion Under U.S. Control
Venezuela’s oil sales, under the control of the United States for five weeks now, are set to bring $5 billion over the next few months, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright told NBC News in an interview. “Sales today are over a billion dollars, and in fact, we have sort of short-term agreements over the next few months that will bring in another $5 billion,” Secretary Wright said in the interview during a historic visit to Venezuela to meet with the interim President Delcy Rodríguez. The United States has already transferred $500 million in proceeds from sales of Venezuelan crude oil to Caracas, following the deal agreed by the two governments in January. All the money from the oil sales, handled by top commodity traders Vitol and Trafigura, goes back to Venezuela from a U.S. Treasury-controlled account, Secretary Chris told NBC News. There is a lot of work to be done and massive investments need to flow for Venezuela to restore its oil industry, “But it’s on the road to becoming investable,” Secretary Wright told NBC News. At last month’s White House meeting of U.S. President Trump with oil executives, ExxonMobil’s CEO Darren Woods said that “If we look at the legal and commercial constructs—frameworks—in place today in Venezuela, today it’s uninvestable.” During the visit to Venezuela, Secretary Chris said earlier this week that Venezuela’s crude oil production could surge as soon as this year. “This year, we can drive a dramatic increase in Venezuelan oil production, in Venezuelan natural gas production and Venezuelan electricity production,” the U.S. official said. Commenting on a recent change in Venezuela’s oil law, Wright said that it was “a meaningful step in the right direction”, as quoted by AP, but “probably not far and clear enough to encourage the kind of large capital flows.”
Oil Prices Tumble Toward Second Consecutive Weekly Loss
Crude oil prices began trade with a decline today, set for the second consecutive weekly loss as fears of a U.S.-Iran escalation faded. At the time of writing, Brent crude was trading at $67.36 per barrel, with West Texas Intermediate at $62.66 per barrel, both essentially unchanged on Monday but down from higher levels seen earlier in the week. “Signs the U.S. is seeking more time to reach a nuclear deal with Iran, reducing the near-term geopolitical risk premium,” have pressured prices, according to IG analyst Tony Sycamore, as quoted by Reuters. ING commodity analysts, meanwhile, pointed to data released this week by OPEC and the U.S. Energy Information Administration, noting that the market had largely ignored the EIA data, which showed an increase in both oil inventories and in production, at 8.53 million barrels and 498,000 barrels daily, respectively. OPEC, on the other hand, had a bullish report for oil traders, keeping its demand growth projections unchanged at 1.38 million barrels daily for this year and 1.34 million barrels daily for 2027. OPEC production, however, fell by 439,000 barrels daily last month, mostly resulting from disruptions in Kazakhstan. The latest monthly oil report of the International Energy Agency, however, prompted a 3% decline in oil prices on Thursday. The IEA revised down its demand growth predictions to 850,000 barrels daily, after last month it made an upward revision to that prediction, to 930,000 barrels daily. The IEA also confirmed its estimate that the oil market will be in a surplus in 2026, with supply set to rise by 2.4 million bpd in 2026, to 108.6 million bpd. Growth will be roughly evenly split between non-OPEC+ and OPEC+ producers, the agency said. Last month, however, global oil supply plunged by 1.2 million bpd to 106.6 million bpd, as severe winter weather disrupted North American operations, in addition to the Kazakhstan decline.