Donald Trump’s administration is discussing a scenario under which it would take control of Venezuela’s oil production and exports, including the state company PDVSA, described in the article as a strategic partner of Russia’s Roszarubezhneft. The White House calculation is that higher Venezuelan supplies could push Brent down to $50 a barrel, from roughly $61 now.
Analysts, however, doubt that such a plan could be implemented quickly. Although Venezuela holds reserves of 303 billion barrels, a large share is heavy and extra-heavy crude. Extracting and upgrading it requires special technology and equipment, and at $50 a barrel such projects are widely seen as uneconomic.
After US sanctions imposed following the election of Nicolas Maduro in 2019, the country’s oil output fell by more than half. Venezuela now produces less than 1 million barrels a day, compared with about 3.1 million in 2004. For comparison, Russia pumps around 9 million barrels a day.
A return to the production levels of 20 to 25 years ago would take at least 10 to 15 years and require enormous investment that is impossible without political stability, independent energy expert Tatyana Lanshina told Novaya Gazeta Europe.
Tatyana Mitrova of Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy added that decades of underinvestment, aging infrastructure and the loss of skilled personnel have created hard limits on growth. The analyst consensus is that output could rise only to about 1.5 million barrels a day within two years, and even that would require hundreds of billions of dollars and a predictable political environment.
Experts say an extra 500,000 barrels a day would still be too little to materially move the global market. Oil analyst Kirill Rodionov estimates the effect at no more than $2-3 per barrel. In the short term, sources cited by the publication expect prices to stay at relatively low levels, an unfavorable outcome for the Kremlin, which would benefit from significantly more expensive oil to support its budget.