Trump’s Venezuela oil deal draws backlash from US producers

President Donald Trump's sweeping oil accord with Venezuela, which he has called "the greatest deal ever made," is drawing sharp criticism from US oil executives who say the arrangement cuts them out of key commercial opportunities and creates a government-backed competitor to private producers.

The deal, first announced by Trump on Truth Social on Aug. 28 and detailed by the White House on Aug. 31, gives the Pentagon's Office of Strategic Capital a 35% equity stake in North American Blue Energy Partners, a private oil company led by Venezuelan businessman Alejandro Betancourt. NABEP has secured 100-year concessions to develop 17 Venezuelan oil fields containing roughly 65 billion barrels of proven reserves — about one-fifth of the country's total.ttnews+4

Industry Alarm

According to Bloomberg, the arrangement has caused "a wave of unease and alarm among industry leaders" who say it short-circuits ongoing commercial negotiations and locks up some of Venezuela's most attractive targets. Multiple industry figures spoke on condition of anonymity, acknowledging the difficulty of publicly criticizing a deal the president has embraced so enthusiastically.energyconnects+1

Bryan Sheffield, a third-generation Texas oil entrepreneur who attended a White House meeting in January where Trump pressed executives to invest in Venezuela, said his team has struggled to gain traction. "When you don't feel loved and you don't feel wanted and you see that they're just cutting conventional fields only, I think unconventional guys will just move to the next country," Sheffield said.energyconnects

Kevin Book, managing director at ClearView Energy Partners, raised a broader concern: "When the government takes an equity investment in a private company, it has an incentive to try to preserve that investment. The question is whether or not it does so in a way that's complementary with the rest of the industry — or competitive with it."energyconnects

Competing Priorities

The industry backlash underscores tensions within the administration's Venezuela strategy. On one hand, Chevron ↘ 0.15% signed a deal on Wednesday to invest more than $7 billion to double its Venezuelan production to roughly 600,000 barrels per day, alongside agreements from Eni ↘ 0.45% and GE Vernova ↗ 0.47% at a ceremony in Caracas attended by Energy Secretary Chris Wright. Administration officials pointed to those contracts as evidence the broader investment climate remains open.reuters+2

On the other hand, the sheer number of fields allocated to NABEP has narrowed what remains available to independent operators. Some fields now under NABEP's control were targets other companies had been pursuing, limiting the appeal of remaining lease bundles. Industry figures have also raised concerns about Betancourt's background, noting he once faced allegations of money laundering and tax fraud in Europe and the US, though he was never charged.aljazeera+2

An Uneasy Precedent

Administration officials have defended the deal, arguing NABEP is a "proven operator" capable of rapidly scaling production and noting that some of the fields involved were previously controlled by Russian and Chinese firms. Wright said Wednesday the US is "highly confident" in the deal's structure, predicting it "will bring enormous benefits to the people of Venezuela and to the people of the United States."whitehouse+2

But to some in the industry, the arrangement recalls an uncomfortable history. The fields were effectively expropriated from their previous operators — in the same country where ConocoPhillips ↗ 0.60% and ExxonMobil Exxon Mobil Corporation ↗ 0.34% had their own assets seized decades ago.energyconnects