Here's how much oil Venezuela is producing and exporting, as the country's future hangs in the balance

By Myra P. Saefong

A U.S. blockade of sanctioned Venezuela oil tankers has been in effect since mid-December

President Trump said Tuesday that Venezuela will send up to 50 billion barrels of its oil to the U.S.

It's been less than a month since President Donald Trump ordered what he referred to as a "total and complete blockade" of all sanctioned oil tankers going into and out of Venezuela.

A lot has happened since then, and that's had an impact on the South American nation's crude-oil production and exports - with oil prices (CL.1) (BRN00) dropping to their lowest levels since mid-December on bets that U.S. involvement in Venezuela's oil sector will eventually lead to more crude on global markets.

Venezuelan oil production has dropped to close to 800,000 barrels per day due to the blockade ordered by Trump, said Matt Smith, U.S. head analyst at Kpler, which estimated output at closer to 1 million barrels per day a year ago.

Venezuelan oil production has fallen to close to 800,000 barrels per day in January 2025, data from Kpler show.

"As the blockade is lifted, production will rebound," said Smith.

Trump said Tuesday that Venezuela will send up to 50 billion barrels of its sanctioned oil to the U.S and that it will be sold at market price, with the money controlled by the president "to ensure it is used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States." On Wednesday, the U.S. said it had "selectively" rolled back sanctions to enable the transport and sale of Venezuelan crude and oil products to global markets.

The way Trump sees it, Venezuela owes compensation to the U.S. for contracts it failed to live up to, which cost U.S. energy companies billions of dollars in revenue over the years, said Phil Flynn, senior market analyst at the Price Futures Group.

In the 2000s, then-President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela required majority ownership by state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. of any joint ventures, reportedly causing U.S. oil majors to lose billions of dollars.

Flynn believes that in that view, Trump has the power to take that Venezuelan oil that he plans to sell.

Meanwhile, the U.S. military forcibly boarded a ship that was being escorted by the Russian navy, as part of its campaign against a shadow fleet of tankers that transport sanctioned Venezuelan oil, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

Smith said crude oil is still being loaded into tankers in Venezuela, "presumably so they do not have to fill inventories to the brim or cut production further."

Exports of Venezuelan oil, however, have dropped from more than 1 million barrels per day in September to less than 800,000 barrels per day currently, according to Kpler, which marked a big chunk of December exports as "unknown" - essentially referring to the crude that is being held back from heading to China by the blockade, said Smith.

Kpler marked most of December's Venezuelan oil exports as "unknown" - referring to the crude that is being held back from heading to China by the U.S. blockade of sanctioned tankers with Venezuelan oil.

Executives from major oil companies are expected to meet with Trump on Friday. That could lay the groundwork for tens of billions of dollars in new U.S. energy investment in Venezuela.

Read: What's at stake for investors when Trump meets oil bosses about Venezuela

Trump will likely appeal to the oil companies' "patriotic spirit" and lay out the major economic opportunity that lays ahead of them, according to Flynn.

Flynn said he's optimistic and believes that this new movement toward the U.S. controlling Venezuela's oil sector is going to "not only help the United States but the Venezuelan people, not to mention the entire [Western] hemisphere."

He views this as a strategic alliance within Trump's broader agenda of using energy security as national security, and bets that Trump is going to expand the potential investment opportunities in Venezuela - extending that to the country's massive gold (GC00) reserves as well as their rare-earth minerals.

"This could be the beginning of a new chapter in global energy security," Flynn said.

-Myra P. Saefong

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01-07-26 1704ET