America’s Greatest Show On Earth — Counted In Barrels Of Venezuelan Crude

There are oil deals, and then there are mega-oil deals. We’ve seen many examples of mega-deals in the past: Exxon buying Mobil and Chevron gobbling up Texaco in the late 1990s; more recently, Oxy’s buyout of Anadarko Petroleum and ExxonMobil’s purchase of Pioneer Natural Resources would qualify.

And then, there are oil deals that are so enormous they boggle the mind. The deal jointly announced by U.S. President Donald Trump and Venezuelan President Delcy Rodriguez late Friday stands alone as that magnitude of oil deal. As President Trump might say, there’s never been anything like it – many people are saying it. 

It’s the greatest show on earth counted in barrels of Venezuelan crude – 65 billion barrels of proven reserves in 17 separate oil fields, to be exact. That’s the volume in which the U.S. now takes an ownership interest, more than doubling the size of America’s current proven oil reserves. 

The implications boggle the mind. Voters in 2024 said they wanted a change in direction of U.S. energy policy and boy did they get it. Twenty months into the second Trump presidency, the climate alarm-driven policies of both Joe Biden and Barack Obama have essentially disappeared. The liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry is booming and rapidly expanding. Offshore wind is going out of business. New nuclear installations on federal properties are being sped into production. Even a handful of new coal plants have been permitted for construction. 

U.S. oil production from shale has continued rising despite a decade of grim predictions that all the prime drilling spots had been developed and production had peaked. America is already far and away the largest oil producing nation – adding 65 billion barrels to the national portfolio only cements that position into place for the foreseeable future.