Venezuela:
The Return of the U.S. Oil Giants

January 19, 2026

After the U.S. military invaded Venezuela in early January and kidnapped the president and his wife, Trump promised future prosperity for the people of the country, with U.S. oil companies leading the way. “Very large U.S. oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, will go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country,” said Trump.

Oil production in Venezuela had plunged from 2.5 million barrels per day in 2015 to less than one million barrels per day in 2025, as the U.S. government strangled Venezuela’s economy by imposing a trade embargo. They did this to punish a government that dared to take some of the profits of the big oil companies in order to relieve some of the country’s worst poverty.

Now, despite the fact that the U.S. has ended the embargo, and the U.S. government is now in charge of the country, top U.S. oil executives have so far balked at the prospect of a return to producing crude oil in Venezuela. As Darren Woods, the CEO of ExxonMobil, blurted out during a meeting with Trump: Venezuela is “uninvestable” under current conditions.

“Uninvestable”? Chevron Corp., the biggest U.S. oil company after ExxonMobil Corp., has been pumping oil in Venezuela for the last 25 years, fighting tooth and nail to remain in the country. Chevron wouldn’t be doing that unless it made big profits out of that production.

In reality, the U.S. oil executives are simply aiming to get the U.S. government to guarantee their profits by offering subsidies, such as loan guarantees from the Export-Import Bank, which the U.S. already provides them in other “unstable” regions, such as Mozambique.

It isn’t just the major oil companies that seek to profit from oil production in Venezuela. U.S. oil refineries, such as Valero and Marathon Petroleum, can’t wait to get their hands on Venezuelan oil, despite the fact that today more crude oil is produced in the U.S. than anywhere else in the world.

Venezuela’s crude oil is very heavy and dirty—which also means that it is much cheaper than oil from other countries. So, almost 70% of all U.S. oil refineries were outfitted decades ago with Venezuela’s oil in mind. Those plants are concentrated on the Gulf Coast, where nine of the country’s ten largest refineries are located.

“Our refineries on the Gulf Coast are the best in the world in terms of refining this heavy crude and there’s been a shortage of heavy crude around the world so I think there will be tremendous demand and interest from private industry if given the space to do it,” Secretary of State Rubio said on ABC’s “This Week,” a day after the U.S. invasion.

That is why one of Trump’s first acts after invading Venezuela was to sign a contract to deliver 30 to 50 million barrels of Venezuelan oil stored on ships and on land and send it to U.S. oil refineries.

Despite the end of U.S. sanctions, the renewed U.S. domination of the Venezuelan oil industry won’t spell relief from the overwhelming impoverishment of the Venezuelan population. On the contrary, it marks a return to the years when foreign governments and companies ran Venezuela as a virtual colony. Very little might ever be invested to reconstruct the country, simply going to the United States capitalists, instead.