DALLAS – The 30-minute U.S. military operation that removed Nicolás Maduro from power has helped clear the way for a sweeping expansion of Venezuela’s battered energy sector, said Energy Secretary Chris Wright, sharing that the country’s national energy production will more than double by the end of 2027.
“Chevron is going to more than double their energy production. In fact, that national energy production in Venezuela will more than double by the end of next year from the intervention on January 3rd this year,” Wright told Fox News Digital on the sidelines of the RNC Midterm Convention.
Wright said the military actions in Venezuela helped open the way for a major increase in oil production as the administration has increasingly taken an active role in the socialist country as part of a broader push to expand U.S. influence and investment.
U.S. forces went into Venezuela for Operation Absolute Resolve on Jan. 3, capturing Maduro and his wife Flores. War Secretary Pete Hegseth said that the attack was part of “massive joint military and law enforcement raid,” and lasted less than 30 minutes.
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“You had 25 years of communist dictatorship. The standard of living has just plummeted in Venezuela. Eight million Venezuelans fled. About a million of them, and not all of them good actors, came to the United States of America. People tried to beg, borrow, bribe, anything they could to change the Venezuelan government. No luck,” Wright said. “President Trump is an out-of-the-box, bold foreign policy leader.”
“A brief military operation, arrest two criminals, and now we have leverage over the government. It’s an existing government. Are they perfect? No. But we have a lot of leverage,” said Wright.
Chevron scored an investment of more than $7 billion over five years and more than double its Venezuelan oil production to 600,000 barrels per day, according to their press release.
Venezuela controls more than 300 billion barrels of crude reserves, roughly 20% of the world’s total. Despite holding an estimated 17% of the world’s oil reserves, Venezuela produces only about 1% of global output after years of political instability and deteriorating infrastructure undermined its energy industry.
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Wright says shifting the center of global energy production toward the Western Hemisphere will put the U.S. at the center and major producers, including Canada, Guyana and Mexico supplying more of the world’s oil and gas.
Millions of barrels of new Venezuelan production would be processed through U.S. refineries and produced using American rigs and infrastructure, creating thousands of American jobs, according to the White House.
The administration’s emerging approach to Venezuela could use U.S. leverage with energy investment to prompt political change.
That deal comes with added importance as the war with Iran disrupts oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz. The average U.S. price for regular gasoline rose to about $4.22 a gallon Wednesday, according to AAA, up from roughly $3.19 a year earlier.
“We’re solving a 47-year conflict with Iran. We cannot have a nuclear-armed Iran. This is a nation sounding death to America and doing everything they can to implement it. But we’ve massively grown United States natural gas exports, good for our economy, good for the world economy,” said Wright.