President Donald Trump announced that the United States has entered a deal for majority ownership in a joint oil venture with a private Venezuelan operator, securing a 55% stake under a 100-year lease over reserves totaling 65 billion barrels—about one-fifth of Venezuela’s 303 billion barrels of proven reserves—and creating what would rank as the world’s second-largest oil company by reserves behind Saudi Aramco. Earlier accounts dated the announcement to August 28, valued the arrangement near $5.4 trillion across 17 strategic fields, and said Venezuelan interim President Delcy Rodríguez confirmed the pact after negotiations led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, with roughly $100 billion in expected private capital and more than $209 billion in projected Venezuelan tax revenue. U.S. crude imports from Venezuela have more than quadrupled this year to about 600,000 barrels per day, the highest since 2019 sanctions and second only to Canada, while domestic proven reserves are cited around 44–46 billion barrels; the heavy, sour grades suit many U.S. Gulf Coast refineries built for Venezuelan crude and could support Strategic Petroleum Reserve rebuilding after stocks fell to levels last seen in the early 1980s. Venezuela’s output has risen to roughly 1.2–1.25 million barrels per day, still far below pre-late-1990s peaks near 3–3.5 million, and analysts say restoring capacity will require years of multi-billion-dollar investment amid corruption, crime, tenuous politics, and earthquake-related instability, even as a U.S. legal framework and Chevron’s existing presence may ease the path for cautious majors.