US Sells $500M of Venezuela Oil, Holds Proceeds in Qatar Bank Account

The development comes following the capture of Nicolas Maduro, the former leader of the South American country 11 days ago. Following this, Trump said that US is taking control of Venezuela's oil reserves and recruit American companies to invest billions of dollars to refurbish the country's gutted oil industry, CNN had reported,.

Trump had, on January 9 (local time) signed an executive order providing details on how his administration plans to block US courts or creditors from seizing any revenue that the US collects from Venezuelan oil and holds in American Treasury accounts.

According to the Semafor report, revenue from the oil sales is currently being held in bank accounts controlled by the US government, as indicated in Friday's order, according to the administration official. The main account, according to a second senior administration official, is located in Qatar.

"President Trump brokered a historic energy deal with Venezuela, immediately following the arrest of narcoterrorist Nicolas Maduro, that will benefit the American and Venezuelan people," White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said in a statement.

"President Trump's team is facilitating positive, ongoing discussions with oil companies that are ready and willing to make unprecedented investments to restore Venezuela's oil infrastructure," she continued.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright said the US government would oversee the sale of the oil and proceeds would be deposited into accounts controlled by Washington and Fox News has reported that additional sales are expected in the coming days and weeks.

As per a CNN report Venezuela is sitting on a massive 303 billion barrels worth of crude -- about a fifth of the world's global reserves, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Trump previously said he plans to mobilize major U.S. oil companies to invest billions in fixing Venezuela's broken oil infrastructure.

We are going to have our very large United States oil companies go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken oil infrastructure and start making money for the country," Trump said.

Meanwhile, US President Trump said on Wednesday (local time) that he had a "long call" with Venezuela's interim president, Delcy Rodriguez.

In a Truth Social post Trump said "This partnership between the United States of America and Venezuela will be a spectacular one FOR ALL. Venezuela will soon be great and prosperous again, perhaps more so than ever before!" he added.

Rodriguez described the call as "long, productive and courteous" and said they discussed a bilateral agenda aimed at benefiting both countries.

Rodriguez, who assumed the acting presidency after the January 3 capture of Maduro by US forces, described the call as conducted "within a framework of mutual respect," in which a bilateral work agenda for the benefit of both nations was addressed, according to her social media posts following the discussion.

"I held a long and courteous telephone conversation with the President of the United States, Donald Trump, conducted within a framework of mutual respect, in which we addressed a bilateral work agenda for the benefit of our peoples, as well as pending matters between our governments," Rodriguez said in a post on X.

After Maduro's capture, Trump said Washington would "run" Venezuela during a transition and needs "total access... to the oil and to other things in their country."

- ANI