Venezuela's Vast Oil Reserves vs. Production Challenges

Venezuela's Vast Oil Reserves vs. Production Challenges (Full Transcript)

Venezuela holds 303 billion barrels of oil, tops globally yet outputs just 1 million barrels daily. U.S. firms eye potential amid infrastructure woes.

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[00:00:00] Speaker 1: How much oil does Venezuela have? According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the South American country is sitting on a massive 303 billion barrels worth of crude oil. In fact, Venezuela leads all countries, even outnumbering Saudi Arabia and representing almost 20% of global reserves in 2023. In announcing the capture of Nicolás Maduro, President Donald Trump said that American oil companies are going to invest billions of dollars in Venezuela and fix the badly broken infrastructure. Venezuela is home to the largest proven oil reserve on earth, but its potential far outweighs its actual output. Venezuela produces only about 1 million barrels of oil per day, which is about 0.8% of global crude production. That's less than half of what it produced when Maduro took control of the country in 2013 and less than a third of the 3.5 million barrels it was pumping in 1998, just before Hugo Chávez and the socialist regime took over. Most of Venezuela's oil, about 68%, is bought by China, followed by the United States with 23% and Spain and Cuba at 4% each. While Venezuelan oil could be particularly beneficial to the United States, it could take years at an incredible expense as the kind of oil Venezuela is sitting on requires special equipment and a high level of technical prowess to produce.