Venezuela, Washington announces oil deal: what is known and what is not

About 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan oil reserves are the subject of a deal made known on August 28, 2026: it was announced by Donald Trump, president of the United States (NPR). It is a dossier that the morning edition did not touch: in this section, at 6:30, the newspaper had dealt with the framework for a shared corridor in the Strait of Hormuz.

The content of the deal, at this stage, rests on a thin informational base. The structure described — 55% of the actual production of a new private company assigned to the United States, together with an ownership stake and the right to purchase oil at cost — was reported by an unidentified administration official, cited by NPR. The same source is the origin of the estimate according to which the new company would rank as the world’s second-largest corporate holder of proven reserves, after Saudi Aramco. No text of the agreement has been made public, and the newspaper Washington Post has offered its own independent reconstruction. The United States Congress has a briefing from the Congressional Research Service on the Venezuelan dossier.

It is worth separating two figures that the announcement holds together. The 65 billion barrels are a reserves figure, that is, estimated oil in the subsoil; the announced percentage, instead, refers to actual production, that is, to what would be extracted. The two measures do not coincide and do not convert into one another: the first describes a geological asset, the second depends on facilities, investments and timelines. Whoever reads a headline with the word “reserves” is reading a stock figure, not a flow available tomorrow.

The domestic U.S. context helps explain the timing of the announcement. The country’s strategic reserves have been drawn down and in early August fell below a critical threshold, at a time of high fuel prices. A deal promising access to barrels at cost fits into that picture, although none of the available sources indicates volumes, timelines or prices.

Politically, the announcement follows by a few months the U.S. military operation of January 3, 2026, which led to the capture of then-president Nicolás Maduro. This newspaper does not cover judicial proceedings and therefore limits itself to recording the date as a chronological reference point for Venezuela’s current political arrangement.

Three points remain open that no available source clarifies: who the private parties in the new company are, which Venezuelan authority signed the deal and through what procedure, and whether the agreement requires steps through the U.S. Congress. As long as the text is not public, the verifiable scope of the story coincides with the announcement and with the description provided by a single official, corroborated by the reconstruction of a second newspaper.

The most solid piece of the whole picture does not concern Venezuela: it is the drop in U.S. strategic reserves below the critical threshold recorded in early August.

Sources: NPR; The Washington Post; Congressional Research Service (research service of the United States Congress).