Overview
- U.S. forces captured Nicolás Maduro and his wife on January 3 and transferred them to New York, where Maduro appeared in court on January 5, as Delcy Rodríguez assumed the interim presidency in Caracas.
- Trump publicly linked the intervention to Venezuela’s petroleum assets and said U.S. companies would invest billions to repair oil infrastructure, with a potential long-term U.S. presence to secure facilities.
- Venezuela holds about 303 billion barrels of proven reserves but produces roughly 1 million barrels per day, largely heavy crude that fits many U.S. Gulf Coast refineries.
- Legal ownership runs through the state via PDVSA, whose operations are increasingly militarized, while U.S. sanctions have frozen or redirected dollar revenues and CITGO remains tied up in a Delaware court process.
- China now buys an estimated 68% of Venezuela’s oil—often via opaque shipping—while Chevron ships limited licensed volumes to the U.S., industry executives remain cautious about returning, and PDVSA estimates $58 billion is needed to modernize.