When President Donald Trump says the United States will “run” Venezuela, he is really talking about putting American energy companies in charge of reviving one of the world’s most valuable but most damaged oil systems.

He is not just hinting at policy tweaks; he is promising a kind of receivership over a founding OPEC member.

At a press conference at Mar‑a‑Lago, covered by Bloomberg Television, after U.S. forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Trump said U.S. oil companies would “spend billions of dollars” to fix Venezuela’s “badly broken” oil infrastructure and that the U.S. would “start making money for the country.”

According to Bloomberg, he framed it as a chance to restore Venezuela’s output to its former glory while paying back American capital out of future oil revenue.

ABC News and CNN both noted that Trump talked about the U.S. “running it with a group” and having oil companies go in and “rebuild their system,” which he called “the greatest theft in the history of America” when Venezuela’s nationalizations pushed out U.S. firms in the 2000s. 

As an investor, you’re watching a political story that directly names Chevron, ExxonMobil, and their peers as the muscle behind a new U.S. oil empire in the Western Hemisphere.

Why Venezuela and its oil matter to your money

Venezuela is a broken giant, and that gap between its geology and its actual output is where your upside and risk live.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), the country holds about 303 billion barrels of proven crude oil reserves, roughly 17% of the world’s total, concentrated in heavy and extra‑heavy crude in the Orinoco Belt.

Venezuela produced about 742,000 barrels of oil per day in 2023.

Right now, those reserves are badly underused. The EIA reports that Venezuela produced about 742,000 barrels per day in 2023, down roughly 70% from 2013 levels, while Statbase data show production at about 893,000 barrels per day in 2024, still a fraction of the more than 3 million barrels per day it pumped in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Anadolu Agency has highlighted how years of underinvestment, sanctions, power outages, and lack of maintenance have left pipelines, upgraders, and refineries in chronic disrepair. 

Newsweek, citing OPEC’s 2025 statistical bulletin, noted that Venezuela’s oil exports were just over $4 billion in 2023, dwarfed by Saudi Arabia’s $181 billion and the U.S.’s $125 billion, despite Venezuela holding the largest reserves in the world.

If President Trump actually unlocks a sustained rebuilding effort there, we’re looking at a potential multi‑decade supply story that could reshape balance sheets at Chevron, Exxon, and others, but only if the politics and the engineering cooperate. 

Chevron and its rivals: who’s really in the hot seat?

You might feel like this is “Chevron’s trade,” and that instinct is mostly right. Yahoo Finance and CNBC reported that Chevron shares jumped as much as 8% to 10% in early trading after Trump’s comments, with ConocoPhillips up roughly mid‑single digits and ExxonMobil also higher as traders rushed into anything with Venezuelan exposure. 

Chevron has the clearest link. According to Bloomberg and the EIA’s Venezuela brief, Chevron was the only U.S. oil major still operating in Venezuela under U.S. sanctions, with special licenses that let it lift and export oil and ramp production to an estimated 135,000 barrels per day in 2023, potentially 200,000 barrels per day by the end of 2024.

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That head start, plus existing joint ventures with state oil company PDVSA, mean Chevron can move first if Washington gives a full green light and if security on the ground holds.

ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil are in a different position. Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal have reported that ConocoPhillips is still owed more than $8 billion from arbitration cases tied to past expropriations, while Exxon has a roughly $1 billion claim. 

Experts share warning about Venezuela’s oil situation

If you zoom out, the expert tone is clear: This is a massive bet with a long runway, not a sure thing. Bloomberg Opinion called President Trump’s strategy “his very own oil empire,” but described it as “a $100 billion gamble,” considering the cost of refurbishing fields, pipelines, upgraders, and refineries that suffered a decade of neglect.

That is real money, even for supermajors, and it puts political stability and contract security front and center for your investment thesis.

Al Jazeera talked to energy analysts who warned that Trump’s bid to “commandeer” Venezuela’s oil could face legal challenges from Venezuelan stakeholders, as well as resistance from China, which has been a key buyer of Venezuelan crude and a major lender.

CNN underscored that while the president talks about quick control, investors should expect “years of uncertainty” as any interim authority tries to write new fiscal terms and navigate domestic backlash to foreign control.

The Baker Institute, in a broader report on Latin American oil production, modeled a scenario where normalized relations and Chevron‑style contracts could lift Venezuelan output to around 1.15 million barrels per day by 2025, versus roughly 1 million barrels per day under a status‑quo path, which shows you how slow the ramp can be even in optimistic cases.

For you as the investor, that means the share‑price spike we just saw is the easy part; the hard part is whether the barrels and the cash actually materialize over the next decade.

How investors can play Trump’s oil fire: tips

If you’re like me, you look at a story like this and immediately ask, “Is this something I trade this week, or something I quietly build around for years?” The honest answer is that President Trump’s Venezuela bet belongs more in your long‑term allocation than in your short‑term trading notebook.

Here are a few practical ways to frame it for your own money:

  • Think in years, not months.The EIA’s numbers make it clear that Venezuela has to climb from under 1 million barrels per day toward its old 3 million barrels per day peak, and that requires stable power, new diluent supplies, repaired refineries, and lots of capital. You should only lean into this theme with money you’re comfortable tying up for a long time.
  • Demand a risk premium. You are taking on political risk, legal risk, and operational risk all at once, so your expected return should be higher than what you’d accept from a pure‑play U.S. shale producer. After a 7% to 10% one‑day jump in some of these stocks, it can make more sense to wait for a pullback or for concrete signs of contracts and capex before adding more.
  • Use diversification to your advantage. Instead of putting a big chunk of your portfolio into one “Venezuela winner,” you can spread your bet across a few integrated majors, refiners, or a broad energy ETF, so that the Venezuela upside is a tailwind rather than a single point of failure.

If I were allocating, I would treat Venezuela as upside optionality on top of an existing case for owning companies like Chevron and ExxonMobil: strong balance sheets, competitive dividends, and diversified global assets that can support your long‑term goals, even if Venezuela takes longer than Trump promises. 

You’re not just reacting to a hot headline about the U.S. “running” another country’s oil; you’re deciding how much of your financial future you want tied to one of the most ambitious, controversial, and uncertain energy bets in modern history.

Related: Venezuela shock may rock oil, stocks this week