6 Charts That Tell the Story of Venezuela’s Troubled Oil Economy

US President Donald Trump has made his objective in Venezuela clear: it is oil.

Following the capture of President Nicolás Maduro, global attention turned to the White House’s next move in the region. To understand the challenges of this transition, here are six graphs that illustrate the scale and importance of Venezuela’s oil reserves.

Hindered oil production

Venezuela’s oil production has been in decline since the middle of the last decade, falling to its lowest point in 2020, when tougher U.S. sanctions and the pandemic stifled demand. Since then, oil production has seen modest rebounds.

A broken economy

The country’s economic health is directly linked to its ability to sell oil. When oil production collapsed in the second half of the 2010s, the country’s economy contracted at an astonishing rate, contracting by around 30% in 2020, before rebounding again in recent years. The collapse of the country was widely blamed over decades of mismanagement, lack of investment and US sanctions.

Huge oil reserves

Although oil production has been hampered, its reserves are vast, probably the largest in the world – larger than those of Saudi Arabia, Iran and Canada. However, estimates suggest It would take $180 billion over a decade to return production in the region to its 1990s peak.

Interested investors will face political instability, aging infrastructure and low oil prices, at least for now.

Low oil prices

Oil prices have been falling for some time, hovering above US$60 for several months. The market could also drive prices down further with expectations that Venezuelan oil could enter an already flooded market.

Tuesday, Trump announcement Venezuela would deliver between 30 and 50 million barrels of oil which it said would be sold at market prices. The Trump administration is “selectively” lifting sanctions to allow the shipment and sale of Venezuelan oil to markets around the world, according to a policy overview released Wednesday by the Department of Energy.

Where he sells his oil

Most of Venezuela’s modest oil production goes to China, an ally of the Maduro regime and the main investor in the region. Venezuela currently repays around $10 billion debt to China, partly covered by oil exports. In an interview following Maduro’s captureUS Secretary of State Marco Rubio said of the raid: “…we are not going to allow the Western Hemisphere to be a base of operations for the adversaries, competitors and rivals of the United States”, most likely referring to China.

How much goes to the United States

The United States buys a significant share of Venezuelan oil, approximately 23% in 2023.

However, Venezuela has become a source of oil for the United States. U.S. trade data shows that not a drop of Venezuelan oil made it to U.S. shores in 2020 and 2021, but small amounts were shipped in 2023 and 2024.