The US administration did not trouble itself with pretending otherwise regarding what drove its attack on Venezuela and the abduction of Nicolas Maduro in early January last year. From the outset, it was clear that Venezuelan oil was the defining headline of the moment. As the weeks passed and the dust from the sudden military assault and the shock it triggered across US political and economic circles began to settle, the circle of beneficiaries from Venezuelan oil among Trump’s associates and those close to his administrations started to come into view.
Alongside this, suspicions of “insider trading” began circulating among Trump’s opponents and those wary of the fallout from the Venezuela operation, amid accusations from Congressional Democrats that something resembling a friendship party had been staged to carve up the Venezuelan cake and distribute its profits among President Trump’s friends and inner circle.
Which companies are expected to benefit most from Venezuelan oil, and what is their relationship to Trump? Which oil investors rose to prominence after the event, and what service do they provide Trump in return? Did the beneficiaries stop at Americans, or is a broader international plan beginning to surface? Finally, will Trump’s plans to slice up the Venezuelan cake pass without meaningful resistance? This article attempts to answer these questions and others.
The Venezuelan cake under pressure
Trump has long maintained a strong relationship with US oil magnates, built on mutual interest. During his run for a second presidential term, Trump swiftly promised them substantial profits if they backed his campaign and political committees.
Executives at US oil companies that operate complex refineries in the United States, including Chevron, Valero Energy, Marathon Petroleum, Phillips 66, and ExxonMobil, together donated at least US$2.5 million to Trump’s campaign committees in the 2024 presidential election. Most of that amount reportedly came from John Hess, a Chevron board member.
Yet once the prize seemed within reach, some companies pulled back. Contrary to Trump’s high expectations, major US oil firms did not rush to thank him and praise the “great opportunity” to seize Venezuelan oil. In a meeting with Trump at the White House on 9 January, attended by Chevron, ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, Continental Resources, Halliburton, HKN Inc., Valero, Marathon, Shell, Trafigura, Vitol Americas, Repsol, Eni, Aspect Holdings, Tallgrass, Risa Energy, and Hilcorp, the companies present split between apprehensive and eager.
Companies such as ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips expressed concerns that Venezuelan oil, under the country’s current conditions, might not attract international investors. ExxonMobil chief executive Darren Woods described Venezuelan oil in its current state as “uninvestable”, while ConocoPhillips chief executive Ryan Lance said Venezuela’s energy system requires rebuilding and rehabilitation before those firms can begin operating in the oil sector.
These concerns are not unfounded. In 2007, Caracas nationalised the companies’ assets in the oil sector, and it still owes them billions of dollars from arbitration rulings. International arbitration courts awarded ConocoPhillips compensation of US$10 billion and ExxonMobil US$1 billion, of which the two companies have recovered only a small fraction. Trump, however, was reportedly clear during the meeting that he was not seeking to recover these debts at present.
ExxonMobil also came under sharp criticism from Trump, who accused it of manipulation and said he leaned towards keeping the company out of Venezuela. Yet ExxonMobil’s close ties to the current administration, including a US$1 million donation to Trump’s inauguration fund, placed it high on Trump’s priorities regarding Guyana’s oil. Guyana, Venezuela’s neighbour, has long seen its projects threatened by Maduro, who claimed Guyana’s oil belongs to Venezuela, to the point of sending warships into Guyana’s economic waters to intimidate Exxon. Now, after Maduro’s arrest, the company appears fully aligned with the Trump administration on Guyana, at least.
The hesitation is not only about the nature of Venezuelan heavy crude, which is difficult to refine. There are also commercial structures and legal frameworks governing oil company operations, and in Venezuela these are described as weak and commercially unviable for such firms. The country, currently producing 1.1 million barrels per day, suffers from neglect and severe strain, conditions to which US sanctions on Venezuela’s oil and financial sectors have directly contributed.
The United States began a sanctions track against Caracas in 2005, initially targeting military figures and government officials. Those sanctions did not fully choke Venezuela’s oil sector until 2017, when Trump began his first term. Venezuelan oil output then fell dramatically, and Caracas’s oil sector has experienced stagnation for the past decade.
ConocoPhillips proposed that Trump restructure the state owned oil company PDVSA, suggesting this aligns with Trump’s push to involve the banking sector in debt restructuring and to provide loans worth hundreds of billions of US dollars to rebuild the country’s infrastructure. Trump is reportedly seeking to secure US$100 billion quickly for investment in repairing infrastructure, making Venezuela an attractive destination for oil companies.
This general frustration in the US oil sector was captured by Bob McNally, founder of Rapidan Energy Group, in a post on the American Petroleum Institute’s “State of American Energy” platform. He wrote: “The Trump administration learned you cannot go to Venezuela and open a tap so three million barrels a day flows. Things do not work that way.”
Chevron’s advantage
Chevron alone appeared ready to begin work without objections. It is the only US oil company currently operating in Venezuela through joint ventures with PDVSA, having secured a special waiver from the federal government during the Biden administration in 2022, allowing it to continue operating in Venezuela’s oil sector despite US sanctions.
Although Chevron was already producing 20 percent of Venezuelan oil output before the military operation in Caracas, its licence from the Office of Foreign Assets Control required it not to launch new oil projects and not to significantly increase production from existing projects. This made the US operation, which resulted in Maduro’s abduction and forced the Venezuelan government to cooperate with the Trump administration on the oil file, a golden opportunity for Chevron.
Chevron also contributed US$2 million to Trump’s inauguration fund, a sum exceeding other US oil companies’ donations and, according to the article’s framing, making it a favoured player in Venezuela.
Chevron employs 3,000 staff and has infrastructure in place, along with extensive experience with Venezuelan production conditions. Vice chair Mark Nelson pledged to quickly increase output by 100 percent, lifting daily production from 240,000 barrels to double that figure immediately. He also indicated plans to raise production by a further 50 percent over the next 18 to 24 months. The company’s share price reportedly rose by 7 percent since Trump’s military operation in Venezuela at the start of this year.
Between corruption and Republican alignment
Refining companies are not the only potential beneficiaries of promised Venezuelan oil. Oilfield services firms, which supply contractors overseeing extraction, reservoir identification, drilling, infrastructure maintenance, and logistics, are among the biggest potential winners. Their profits can exceed those of major oil companies due to lower operating costs and reduced financial risk, as they do not need to invest billions in the way major producers do.
SLB is one such firm. Like Chevron, SLB continues to operate as a partner in the Venezuelan field, which reportedly helped drive its share price up by 28 percent since the US military operation in Caracas. Its chief executive, Olivier Le Peuch, said at the meeting that the company has equipment worth US$700 million in Venezuela ready to move immediately and expand operations, claiming no one knows Venezuela’s subsurface like SLB.
Other service firms seeking contracts in Venezuelan oilfields include Baker Hughes, which operates in more than 120 countries, and Halliburton, associated with Republican Dick Cheney, who led the company in the 1990s before serving as vice president under George W Bush.
Trading houses and early licences
As for commodity trading firms focused on transporting, storing, and selling oil, Vitol and Trafigura were granted the first licences from the Trump administration to export Venezuelan oil under a preliminary agreement between the Trump administration and the current Venezuelan government led by Maduro’s deputy, Delcy Rodriguez, valued at US$2 billion.
The two companies reportedly sold US$500 million worth of Venezuelan oil during the last week of January, totalling 11 million barrels, to multiple US and international buyers. Trafigura sold its first shipment to Spain’s Repsol, while Vitol offered its sales in deals with US oil companies including Phillips 66 and Valero.
Granting licences to these two firms triggered wide US objections due to their histories involving corruption and bribery. Both companies have been implicated in judicial cases concerning bribery in South America and have been summoned by the US Department of Justice for investigations into multiple bribery incidents in Latin America in recent years.
Vitol, for example, agreed in 2020 to pay US$135 million in financial penalties after being convicted on bribery charges in Ecuador, Mexico, and Brazil. The company also acknowledged in court that it paid US$600,000 in bribes to Mexico’s oil company in 2024.
Trafigura, similarly, was convicted on corruption and bribery allegations involving a Brazilian oil company and was forced to pay US$126 million in penalties following a US Department of Justice investigation in 2024.
Doubts also grew about whether Trump campaign donors and contributors to his political operations and inauguration were benefiting from Venezuelan oil after the first sale was granted to Vitol, whose representative John Addison donated at least US$6 million to political action committees supporting Trump’s presidential campaign.
Smaller risk takers and new investors
Anticipating complications that major US firms may face in entering the Venezuelan arena, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said, in remarks at an economic club in Minnesota before Trump’s meeting with major oil companies, that those firms did not appear interested in investing in Venezuela. He stated that smaller, independent oil companies, along with individuals and independent explorers, were contacting the administration intensively and were prepared to move into the sector at remarkable speed. The administration may therefore shift towards contracting with them rather than hesitant majors.
In an investigation by The Washington Post, smaller companies led by risk takers and new investors were portrayed as among the biggest beneficiaries of Trump’s takeover of the Venezuelan oil sector. Notably, some of these figures are described as major donors to Trump and his election campaigns.
While major US oil companies hesitate to enter Venezuela’s weakened energy field due to high investment costs despite Trump’s promises of major profits, other players in the oil industry with close ties to Trump and the Republican Party are described as ready to reap millions by gambling in Venezuela.
At the top of this list is Paul Singer, the American billionaire who owns Elliott Investment Management and is a major Republican donor and funder of Trump’s campaigns, having donated at least US$10 million to Trump aligned political committees in recent years. Elliott is not new to the Venezuelan market and has sought for years to acquire distressed Venezuelan assets in the United States, and is now positioned to secure them.
If it obtains legal and regulatory approvals, Elliott’s acquisition of CITGO, a Houston based refining company owned by PDVSA from the 1980s until 2019, would allow it to generate major profits by converting Venezuelan crude into petrol at its refineries in Illinois, Louisiana, and Texas. These refineries are described as well equipped to handle Venezuelan heavy crude. Under US sanctions on Venezuela, the refineries were forced to buy heavy crude at high prices from Canada and Mexico.
CITGO reportedly began buying Venezuelan oil in late January 2026 for the first time since 2019, after it severed ties with PDVSA following Maduro’s re election and Washington’s refusal to recognise him as the legitimate winner. CITGO has reportedly purchased an initial shipment of Venezuelan crude of about 500,000 barrels from Trafigura, to be delivered this February.
Alongside Singer, Trump is also portrayed as looking towards controversial figures among oil explorers who drill in remote places seeking high returns, often without complex equipment capable of handling heavy crude such as that in Venezuela.
As the expected influx of Venezuelan oil into US markets threatens greater losses for this category, a Trump aligned explorer is highlighted: billionaire Harold Hamm, chair of Continental Resources, who attended the White House meeting, reportedly prompting surprise among major company representatives.
Hamm is described as one of Trump’s most influential external advisers on oil and a close figure to the current administration, as well as one of its major donors. He reportedly helped the administration secure US$1 billion during Trump’s second election campaign in exchange for promises related to boosting oil profits domestically. Trump described him as trustworthy on energy policy. Hamm is now seeking to ensure that he and his company obtain a share, however small, of the Venezuelan oil cake.
Also among the smaller investors seeking attractive returns are executives at lesser known hedge funds operating away from the spotlight and not subject to shareholder reporting requirements. These funds are described in the article as small colonial actors that quickly sent envoys and banking representatives to seek bargains on equipment and real estate, exploiting the widespread disorder that followed the US military operation.
Tribeca Investment Partners is cited as one such fund. Its manager Ben Cleary described what is happening in Venezuela as a “huge gold rush, where every bank is sending its representatives there”.
Money first, not America
Trump’s ambitions for rapid investment in Venezuelan oil are not limited to major US companies. European and Latin American oil firms already present in Venezuela before the US operation may, in this account, be better positioned to deliver those ambitions than US companies facing growing shareholder pressure over feasibility concerns and logistical constraints.
At the forefront are Spain’s Repsol and Italy’s Eni, which maintain large assets in the United States and therefore secured seats at the White House meeting. They operate in Venezuela and are present on the ground with equipment and the ability to increase production quickly and with less hesitation.
Trump’s “America First” policy, often championed by pro administration voices, is described as facing serious challenges in the Venezuelan oil file. While official US media promoted the slogan “American oil companies first”, the nature of the licences issued by the Trump administration to both US and non US firms indicates otherwise.
Eni and Repsol, whose swap licences for oil and gas had previously been cancelled by the Trump administration last year as part of a policy to tighten pressure on Maduro, returned under new licences enabling barter and debt recovery. Those debts are cited as reaching US$6 billion.
The policy granting facilities to European and foreign oil companies is presented as not being charitable. All investment returns in Caracas and all payments to Venezuelan oil companies must pass through accounts under US control. US laws also govern contracts under these licences and serve as the forum for resolving disputes. This makes Washington the primary controller of those companies’ investment returns and links the licences to Washington’s share of payments, cited in the first Venezuelan oil sale as 40 percent and described as poised to rise in coming days.
Beyond these international companies, the article also points to allied governments seeking to win favour with the current US administration while pursuing expansion deals to secure a place in a rapidly changing international landscape. Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, ADNOC, has reportedly indicated its intention to explore entering the Venezuelan oil market.
Venezuela’s difficult market is not described as Abu Dhabi’s first attempt to court Trump. ADNOC previously expressed readiness to invest in gas fields off the Gaza Strip in line with Trump’s investment plan for the territory, claiming in a proposal presented to Washington and Tel Aviv that it could direct profits from investing in gas fields towards Gaza’s reconstruction efforts.
ADNOC is portrayed as adopting a risk taking approach that impressed the US administration, contrasting with the caution of some major US oil companies, relying on its oil revenues to finance repair and rehabilitation, especially in Venezuela’s natural gas sector, which is described as amounting to two thirds of Latin America’s gas reserves.
On another international front, the Trump administration is portrayed as attempting to shape a new global economic order in which oil flows are redirected away from Russia and China in particular, as well as other adversarial systems such as Iran’s leadership. In a new direction, Washington opened partial doors for New Delhi to return to investment in Venezuela after having imposed in March a 25 percent tariff on countries importing oil from Caracas, as part of a pressure camp against Maduro.
Following the US invitation, India’s Narendra Modi reportedly pledged, in direct communication with Delcy Rodriguez, to open new horizons for trade relations in the oil sector in exchange for cutting imports from Russia by hundreds of thousands of barrels per day over the following months. India has been a major importer since 2022 and, as described, faced a further tariff increase of 25 percent, bringing it to 50 percent and weighing on it recently.
India’s IOC and ONGC Videsh, described as India’s largest company in international exploration and production of oil and natural gas, are now preparing to increase their investments in Venezuelan energy after US sanctions had clearly constrained them since Trump’s first term.
Congressional pushback
Finally, the article argues that the Trump administration’s suspicious moves to carve up the Venezuelan cake did not go unnoticed. Fourteen Democratic members of Congress, led by California Representative Adam Schiff and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, sent a sharply worded letter to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles demanding that the administration disclose Trump’s close circle positioned to benefit from Venezuelan oil.
The letter called on Trump’s ministers and administration members to disclose, in annual reports required under the Ethics in Government Act, any personal investments, financial relationships, or side interests linking them to the companies that attended the White House meeting on 9 January last year.
It also stressed the need for administration officials to disclose relationships with private contractors, whether in oil and related services or in security and military operations, warning that any suspicions around these interests would lead to future Congressional scrutiny to ensure there was no improper enrichment for the president personally or his surrounding inner circle.
