Lots of oil, little production: Facts about Venezuelan energy

Venezuela sits on more oil than Saudi Arabia, Russia, the United States and every other country.

- REBECCA F. ELLIOTT

The logo at Citgo Petroleum's headquarters in Houston, Texas. Citgo, which is owned by Venezuela's state-owned oil company, has been at the centre of a legal battle to force the Venezuelan government to pay its debts.

(AFP)

Yet, it produces and sells only about 1% of the crude the world is using.President Donald Trump's recent threats against the Venezuelan government and his administration’s strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea have cast fresh attention on the country’s energy wealth, which has tantalized generations of oilmen.

It is hard to know what role oil may end up playing in the tussle between the Trump administration and the government of President Nicolas Maduro. But oil has long been central to US-Venezuela relations.

Venezuela has roughly 17% of the world’s known oil reserves, or more than 300 billion barrels, according to the Oil & Gas Journal, an industry publication. In other words, that’s how much oil experts believe could be extracted from the country’s territory.

To put that in context, the United States, the world’s top oil producer, has an estimated 81 billion barrels of proven reserves.

Venezuela pumped almost 5% of the world’s oil in 1997, but years of mismanagement, underinvestment and US sanctions have squeezed output. The difficulty of extracting the country’s tar-like oil has also complicated matters.

The United States used to buy most of Venezuela's oil, but that trade stopped in 2019 after the first Trump administration imposed sanctions on the country’s state-owned oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela. Shipments to the United States resumed in 2023, but volumes have remained low. Most of Venezuela's crude now flows to China.