US refineries taking in half of Venezuela’s oil output, official says

Venezuela is exporting about half of its oil output to the United States, according to a senior US official, seven months after Washington abducted President Nicolas Maduro and installed an interim government in Caracas.

Speaking at an industry event in Houston on Tuesday, Under Secretary of Energy Kyle Haustveit said more than 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) are now moving from Venezuela to the US out of national output of roughly 1.25 million bpd.

He said the oil was moving to refineries “built specifically for that crude”.

Venezuela holds the world’s largest proven oil reserves – an estimated 303 billion barrels, or about 17 percent of the global total, according to the US Energy Information Administration.

But decades of underinvestment and sanctions had left it producing roughly 1 percent of world supply. At the end of 2025, it was producing about 1 million barrels per day, with some 135,000 barrels per day going to the US.

The country’s oil is heavy, sour crude, the type refineries on the US Gulf Coast are built to process, making the resumption of Venezuelan imports a direct benefit to those plants.

Haustveit said Washington was also helping to scale up production in Venezuela, noting that the US is sending more than 100,000 bpd of naphtha to the country, where it is blended with heavier crude.

He called the arrangement “a beautiful energy partnership”, saying there was a “real value being created on both sides of the trade”.