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The US will seek to control Venezuelan oil sales “indefinitely” and funnel proceeds to American banks as Washington steps up its efforts to shape the resource-rich nation days after the capture of Nicolás Maduro.
Energy secretary Chris Wright said on Wednesday that the US would sell crude currently in storage in Venezuela as well as fresh production to American refineries and around the world.
“We’re going to . . . let the oil flow,” Wright told energy executives gathered at a Goldman Sachs energy conference in Miami on Wednesday.
He said the sales would be “done by the US government, and [proceeds] deposited in bank accounts, controlled by the US government”.
The funds could then “flow back into Venezuela to benefit the Venezuelan people”, he said. “But we need to have that leverage and that control of those oil sales to drive the changes that simply must happen in Venezuela.”
The US will also roll back some of the sanctions on Venezuela’s crude, which have severely hampered its energy sector, the White House said.
The vast majority of Venezuela’s crude is currently transported to China, although Chevron has a licence from Washington allowing it to also export some oil from the country.
The latest US moves come as Donald Trump looks to lure US oil companies back into Venezuela where he wants them to spend “billions of dollars” rebooting its energy sector. The president had said after the operation to seize Maduro on Saturday that Washington planned to “run” Venezuela.
Trump said on Tuesday that Venezuelan authorities had agreed to turn over 30mn to 50mn barrels of sanctioned crude to the US, worth up to $3bn which would be sold by Washington at market prices.
Wright’s comments on Wednesday went further than that, suggesting the US would take control of all oil sales going forward.
“We’re going to market the crude coming out of Venezuela,” he said. “First this backed-up store of oil, and then indefinitely going forward we will sell the production that comes out of Venezuela in the marketplace.”
Shares in US oil refiners that are well equipped to process Venezuela’s heavy crude jumped on the news. Valero, which has several refineries on the US Gulf coast, climbed almost 5 per cent. Shares in Phillips 66, another big refiner, rose almost 4 per cent.