President Donald Trump said on Monday that sales of Venezuela’s oil by his administration have generated more than $13 billion since the capture of former President Nicolás Maduro on January 3, arguing that the revenue has effectively “paid for that war many times over.” Trump made the comments to reporters aboard Air Force One in response to a Financial Times report published a week earlier that estimated roughly $13 billion in Venezuelan oil revenue is being held in frozen U.S. Treasury accounts with limited public accounting.

In April, Energy Secretary Chris Wright told Semafor that the United States had sold about 150 million barrels of Venezuelan oil since Trump seized the country’s oil assets. Venezuela’s heavy, sour crude is typically sold at a discount of up to $15 per barrel to Brent crude, a price gap that helps explain why the barrels remain commercially relevant even as the political fight over the proceeds continues.

When asked where the money went, Trump said it is used for “running the country” and suggested that future funds could be redirected to the U.S. military, subject to congressional approval. Initial proceeds were moved to an offshore Qatari account to avoid creditor seizures, but State Department and Treasury officials later said the oil revenue was being held in a Citibank account managed by the U.S. Treasury. Congressional leaders have called for a full audit of the accounts. In June, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Congress that the oil sales are audited by KPMG on a continuous basis.

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Critics have noted that despite devastating earthquakes in Venezuela, only $386 million in official disaster aid has been transferred. State Department official Michael Kozak told Congress in April that about $3 billion had been disbursed to pay Venezuelan government salaries and fund oil infrastructure, leaving roughly $10 billion reportedly unaccounted for.

As lawmakers continue to press for a full accounting of the proceeds, the underlying asset generating the revenue has remained in demand. In Texas, refiners are now processing the highest volumes of Venezuelan crude seen since before the first Trump administration imposed sanctions in 2019. Gulf Coast refiners have increased purchases after prolonged disruptions to Middle Eastern crude supplies forced them to replace heavy sour barrels from Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

Venezuela’s oil sector has expanded output, increased exports and changed the way it sells crude into international markets since the Trump administration assumed control of the country’s oil assets.

Earlier this month, Oilprice reported that global refiners have begun bypassing commodity traders to negotiate directly with Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA), with Phillips 66 (NYSE:PSX) already signing direct supply agreements and Valero Energy (NYSE:VLO) expected to follow. European energy majors Repsol (OTCQX:REPYY) and Eni S.p.A. (NYSE:E) have also increased direct liftings of Merey 16 crude, while India’s Reliance Industries has built a direct supply chain into its heavy-crude refining system.

Those commercial ties have coincided with a sharp rise in production. Venezuela’s oil output climbed from about 820,000 barrels per day in January to 1.23 million bpd by June, while exports reached 1.25 million bpd, their highest level since sanctions were imposed in 2019.

Much of the recovery has been driven by Venezuela’s 2026 Hydrocarbons Law, which ended PDVSA’s mandatory majority ownership model and opened upstream projects to greater private participation while lowering fiscal terms for new investment.

Even so, Rystad Energy says aging infrastructure and severe shortages of oilfield services will limit near-term growth. The consultancy expects production gains through 2028 to come from mature fields and estimates that restoring Venezuela’s historical 3 million bpd production capacity would require about $183 billion in cumulative investment through 2040.

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com