A Trump administration official confirmed to Fox News on Wednesday the first sale of Venezuelan oil, valued at $500 million, has been completed.
The deal came after President Donald Trump announced interim authorities in Venezuela would be turning over between 30 million and 50 million barrels of sanctioned oil to the U.S., worth about $2.8 billion at current market prices.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright said the U.S. government would oversee the sale of the oil and proceeds would be deposited into accounts controlled by Washington.
Additional sales are expected in the coming days and weeks.
EXPERT WARNS OF ‘EXTREME VIOLENCE’ IN VENEZUELAN MINING AS TRUMP ADMIN EYES MINERAL RESERVES
“President [Donald] Trump brokered a historic energy deal with Venezuela, immediately following the arrest of narcoterrorist Nicolás Maduro, that will benefit the American and Venezuelan people,” White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers wrote in a statement to Fox News.
“President Trump’s team is facilitating positive, ongoing discussions with oil companies that are ready and willing to make unprecedented investments to restore Venezuela’s oil infrastructure,” she continued. “President Trump is protecting our Western Hemisphere from being taken advantage of by narcoterrorists, drug traffickers, and foreign adversaries.”
PRESIDENT TRUMP SAYS THERE WON’T BE A ‘SECOND WAVE OF ATTACKS’ AGAINST VENEZUELA DUE TO THEIR ‘COOPERATION’
Venezuela holds more than 300 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, nearly quadruple those of the U.S.
Though the country in the late 1990s was capable of pumping about 3.5 million barrels a day, mismanagement, corruption and the rising cost of extraction caused production to fall to roughly 800,000 barrels a day, according to energy analytics firm Kpler.
Trump previously said he plans to mobilize major U.S. oil companies to invest billions in fixing Venezuela’s broken oil infrastructure.
“We are going to have our very large United States oil companies go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken oil infrastructure and start making money for the country,” Trump said.
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