The White House released the full terms of its Venezuela oil deal on Monday, three days after US President Donald Trump announced it as the “biggest oil deal in world history.” Under the agreement, North American Blue Energy Partners, already the second-largest private oil producer in Venezuela, picked up rights to develop 17 fields for the next hundred years, together holding roughly 65 billion barrels of proven reserves.
Two federal agencies came away with distinct pieces of the arrangement. The Pentagon’s Office of Strategic Capital took an equity position worth 35% of NABEP’s parent company, and the State Department locked in a standing order for a fifth of production priced at cost, plus first claim on whatever output remains.
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The White House said it designed that 20% purchase right to help replenish the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, calling the arrangement a way to secure “energy dominance for the next century” at “zero cost to the United States.” The statement provides the institutional mechanism for Trump’s claim that Venezuelan oil would “top out” the depleted reserve.
But it still doesn’t look like it will be happening any time soon as Venezuelan crude remains too heavy for the reserve’s storage specifications, and the oil itself is still in the ground, requiring the $100 billion infrastructure buildout NABEP has pledged but not yet completed.
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As part of the deal, the US also gained a say over who runs NABEP. Washington can block any appointment to NABEP’s board outright, and American citizens must fill most of the seats.
Russian or Chinese firms previously held many of the fields, the White House said. NABEP will pay Venezuela an expected $200 billion in royalties and taxes over the deal’s first 25 years, though former US energy advisers warn the deal’s legal footing is shaky at best — a change in leadership on either side could unravel it down the road.
