Oil sales under US-Venezuela deal expected to reach $2 billion by end of February, US says

U.S. Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright, attends an interview with Reuters, in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, April 11, 2025. REUTERS/Amr Alfiky · Reuters

By Sheila Dang

Fri, February 27, 2026 at 9:10 AM GMT+9 1 min read

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By Sheila Dang

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas, Feb 26 (Reuters) - Sales under a flagship oil supply agreement between Venezuela and ‌the U.S. are expected to reach $2 billion by the ‌end of this month, U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright told reporters in ​Texas on Thursday.

The U.S. took control of Venezuela’s oil exports shortly after U.S. forces captured President Nicolas Maduro in early January, with proceeds going to a U.S.-supervised fund in Qatar.

Since then, trading houses ‌Vitol and Trafigura have ⁠been marketing and trading the lion’s share of the OPEC country’s oil under the pact, while ⁠partners of Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA, particularly Chevron, are boosting output and shipments.

The export increase is already returning Venezuela’s crude and ​fuel to ​markets that had not seen ​it arriving for months ‌or years.

More customers in Asia and Europe are negotiating deals to import soon, with 40 million barrels expected to have been sold by the end of February at about $50 per barrel, Wright said. The pact’s initial sales target was between 30 million ‌and 50 million barrels, U.S. President ​Donald Trump had said.

Chinese independent refineries that ​were previously importing sanctioned ​oil can now buy Venezuelan crude on the ‌open market, Wright said. Trump ​has said oil ​cargoes will only be sold at fair market prices.

Wright also said that millions of barrels of Venezuelan oil currently ​in floating storage ‌in Venezuelan waters are in the process of being sold.

(Reporting ​by Sheila Dang and Curtis Williams; Writing by Marianna ​Parraga; Editing by Jamie Freed)

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