Venezuela

1. 16 December 2025

   AmericasVenezuela sequence

   Washington blockades Venezuelan tankers.

   Venezuelan seaborne crude, including China-bound cargoes

   Trump announces a “total and complete blockade” on sanctioned oil tankers entering or leaving Venezuela. Coast Guard and Navy boardings follow in the Caribbean and North Atlantic — Skipper, Centuries, a chase of Bella 1. Chinese-traded cargoes are among those stopped. The delivery system is under US control two and a half weeks before Caracas is hit.

2. 3 January 2026

   AmericasVenezuela sequence

   US forces take Caracas. Maduro is captured.

   World’s largest proven crude reserves, ~303 bn barrels

   Between 02:01 and 04:29 in Caracas, US special forces — Delta, the 160th SOAR, with a large air package — seize President Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores and fly them to the USS Iwo Jima, then New York, on narcotics charges. Vice-president Delcy Rodríguez is left as interim leader. Trump says the United States will “run” Venezuela and take “a tremendous amount of wealth out of the ground.” Energy Secretary Wright later says Washington will oversee the sale of Venezuelan oil indefinitely.

3. 14–29 January 2026

   AmericasVenezuela sequence

   The first Venezuelan cargoes are sold in Washington.

   First sales ~$500m · 50 mb supply deal framed

   The Department of Energy completes the first sales of Venezuelan oil, valued at about $500 million, inside a larger ~$2 billion, 50-million-barrel framework. Rodríguez’s government passes a law giving private companies control of production and sale. US sanctions on the oil trade are rewritten as licences. China, which had been taking roughly 3% of its crude imports from Venezuela, is no longer on the default destination list.

4. January–August 2026

   AmericasVenezuela sequence

   Venezuelan crude is redirected to the US Gulf.

   >500 kb/d to the US · ~40% of Venezuelan output

   Sanctions are rewritten around the new Caracas. Chevron stays; other Western firms return. By late July Chevron is producing ~280 kb/d. By August, Energy Intelligence has national output at ~1.08–1.2 mb/d — a seven-year high — with more than half a million barrels a day moving to US refiners. A multi-year rebuild, not a 2026 glut.

5. 28 August 2026

   AmericasVenezuela sequence

   A 100-year concession on 65 billion barrels.

   17 fields · 65 bn barrels · Pentagon 35% via NABEP

   Trump calls it “the biggest oil deal in world history.” Interim authorities grant North American Blue Energy Partners century-long rights over 17 fields — roughly half in a wrecked Maracaibo basin. The Pentagon’s Office of Strategic Capital takes a 35% stake (structured as warrants). The State Department can buy 20% of output at cost for the SPR, with first refusal on the rest. Days later in Caracas, Energy Secretary Wright oversees a companion Chevron commitment of more than $7bn over five years in the Orinoco Belt, with a 600 kb/d target. Production will not jump this winter. Title to the resource already has.

Projected oil demand

Regional IEA WEO 2025 oil pathways applied to this country’s 2025 baseline. STEPS 2035 demand 0.4 mb/d (net +1.3) versus NZE 0.2 mb/d (net +0.6).

Same region