Trump administration unveils additional details in Venezuela oil deal

The Trump administration unveiled additional details Monday evening about its new oil deal with Venezuela.

The administration said in a press release that the Pentagon’s Office of Strategic Capital will take a 35 percent equity stake in North American Blue Energy Partners, a private company that is Venezuela’s second-largest private oil producer.

It added that the firm, which will now be partly owned by the U.S. government, was given a 100-year concession for Venezuelan oil fields that are estimated to contain about 65 billion barrels of oil — about 21 percent of Venezuela’s total estimated oil.

The administration also said that the U.S. will get the right to purchase 20 percent of the oil that North American Blue Energy Partners unearths at the cost of production. It said that this oil can be used to fill the U.S.’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which both the Trump and Biden administrations have pulled from in recent years to mitigate the fuel price impacts of the war in Iran and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The State Department will also be given the first right of refusal to purchase the other 80 percent of the oil the company produces.

The administration said that “millions of barrels” produced in Venezuela will be processed by U.S. refineries, but it did not specify a number or percentage.

The new information comes as the initial details released by the administration were vague , saying the U.S. would work with a private operator but not naming the company.

The Wall Street Journal reported that North American Blue Energy Partners is led by Alejandro Betancourt, who has faced investigations of alleged money laundering, though no charges have been filed. The Washington Post reported that the U.S. intervened in a Swiss criminal case against Betancourt, lobbying to avoid criminal charges and end travel restrictions against the businessman, who was based in the U.K.

After the U.S. incursion into Venezuela at the start of the year, President Trump frequently said he wanted access to the country’s oil .