Caracas (theassemblymedia.com) — Acting President Delcy Rodríguez credited the oil deal signed with Washington to “months of negotiation” and that the objective was mutual benefit.
“These have been arduous months of negotiations—difficult, yes—but we never lost sight of our goal to achieve better wages, for workers’ families to have better lives, for hospitals to be well-equipped, and for schools to provide quality education,” said Rodríguez in a televised address on September 4 alongside hundreds of oil workers from the state oil company PDVSA.
Rodríguez added that the agreement with Washington will bring private investment to develop eight greenfields, which stands in contrast to nearly 90 percent of global financial investment being spent solely to offset natural declines in active oil fields. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), up to 80 percent of active fields in the world are technically past their peak output.
“We are signing agreements to develop new fields,” Rodríguez told the oil workers. “We are shaping not only Venezuela’s future but also our contribution to international energy security and the balance of the global economy.” The acting president announced that PDVSA has also signed dozens of contracts with foreign corporations and that new oil rigs and other equipment will arrive in the country before the end of the year.
On August 28, Caracas and Washington unveiled a comprehensive bilateral energy agreement, which the White House has dubbed the “biggest oil deal in world history.” The deal covers 17 strategic oil fields, including eight greenfields, located in the eastern Orinoco Oil Belt and western Lake Maracaibo. These fields collectively contain approximately 65 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, representing about one-fifth of Venezuela’s total reserves.
The operation of these 17 fields will be managed by North American Blue Energy Partners (NABEP), a private company owned by Venezuelan businessman Alejandro Betancourt, who was hand-picked by the Trump government. The Pentagon’s Office of Strategic Capital will maintain a 35 percent stake in NABEP’s corporate parent and will have board veto power. This arrangement grants the US significant operational and economic control over the oil fields during a 100-year concession period, which is expected to more than double the current proven reserves in the US.
Venezuela anticipates around $100 billion in investments over a 25-year period and generating $200 billion in tax revenue from this agreement. The primary goal is to revitalize Venezuela’s deteriorated infrastructure and increase oil production to over 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd) by the first half of 2027. As of now, output is approximately 1.2 million bpd, according to secondary sources from OPEC.
The deal comes after years of US sanctions that crippled Venezuela’s oil industry. Since 2017, the US Treasury Department has imposed financial sanctions on PDVSA, isolating it from international markets. The situation worsened in 2019 when an oil embargo forced foreign partners to abandon their Venezuelan joint ventures and the seizure of CITGO, a Houston-based subsidiary of PDVSA, ended the flow of fuel and billions in revenue to Caracas. In 2020, US secondary sanctions deterred other countries from purchasing Venezuelan crude.
In late 2025, Washington intensified its actions with a naval blockade off Venezuela’s coast to intercept crude shipments. On January 3, the Trump administration bombed Caracas, kidnapped President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, and took control of the country’s oil exports, redirecting revenue to a US-controlled account.
The US sanctions regime remains in place. Although PDVSA has signed numerous contracts with international companies recently, these operations depend on the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) licenses for authorization.
The high-level agreement does not return control of Venezuela’s oil revenue to Caracas. On Sunday, US Energy Secretary Chris Wright told ABC News that the Trump administration has “a lot of leverage over Venezuela” as it continues to control oil exports. “They are currently forced to work in partnership with us,” he said with regard to the 100-year concession.
On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that revenue would “eventually flow through a democratically elected government”. Since its military intervention, Washington has implemented a three-phase plan focused on internal stabilisation, economic recovery tied to oil control, and political transition.
The asymmetrical and coercive conditions surrounding the oil deal have raised concerns about its legality. Elías Jaua, the former Venezuelan vice president and minister for foreign affairs, has stated that the contract is legally invalid because it was entered into under duress.
“Given that we are a country under military occupation, we must question the Venezuelan state’s free consent to enter into this agreement. Our country is economically and politically administered by the occupying power,” he told Hispantv.
The Chavista figure also pointed out that Article 303 of the Venezuelan Constitution strictly mandates state ownership of hydrocarbon resources. This means that oil fields “cannot be managed by a private company.”
During her recent meeting with oil workers, Acting President Rodríguez defended that her administration is striving to ensure “Venezuela’s social and economic well-being through sovereign negotiations.” She added the energy contracts will bring new infrastructure for energy, electricity, and water with international partners.
“They accuse me of wanting what’s best for the country,” Rodríguez told the crowd, praising oil workers for their “victorious resistance” during the years-long US sanctions regime.