White House unveils more details of Trump’s Venezuela oil deal

What the report says

The White House has disclosed further details of a major oil arrangement with Venezuela, expanding on President Donald Trump’s effort to secure access to the country’s reserves. According to Al Jazeera, the deal centers on a private joint venture involving North American Blue Energy Partners (NABEP), a company owned by Venezuelan businessman Alejandro Betancourt. The Trump administration says the Pentagon’s Office of Strategic Capital will hold a 35% stake, while the United States will also have the right to purchase 20% of the output at cost.

Al Jazeera reported that Betancourt’s company has pledged $100 billion in new oil infrastructure investment. The White House says the agreement gives NABEP 100-year rights to operate 17 oil fields with proven reserves of 65 billion barrels. The article added that many of those fields were previously linked to Russian or Chinese operators, according to the administration’s description.

The arrangement was signed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and the White House framed it as supporting U.S. “energy dominance” over the long term. Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodriguez, is described as having approved the field rights. Trump has presented the deal as a way to eventually lower fuel costs and help replenish U.S. strategic oil reserves, though he acknowledged prices would not fall immediately.

The report notes that analysts have expressed skepticism about how quickly Venezuelan production could recover. More broadly, the agreement underscores the strategic and political importance of Venezuela’s oil sector, which remains one of the largest in the world.