General situation
Recent events in Venezuela are often linked to the country’s oil reserves.
Venezuela actually has the world’s largest oil reserves – about 303 billion barrels. For example, all OPEC countries (which includes Venezuela) have about 1240 billion barrels of reserves (i.e., Venezuela’s share is about 25%), while the world’s total reserves are about 1566 billion barrels (Venezuela’s share is about 20%).
300 billion barrels – how much is that? Current global oil production is just over 100 million barrels per day, or about 36.5 billion barrels per year. Thus, Venezuela’s oil alone could supply the world for almost 10 years if it could be extracted without limitations.
The history of oil production in Venezuela
Oil production in Venezuela has declined over the past few decades. In its best years, the production exceeded 3.5 million barrels per day. But the history of oil production in Venezuela is quite illustrative. Against the background of rising prices in the early 1970s, there was a significant reduction in production.
In 1976, nationalization took place, which led to a prolonged decline in production that only ended in the early 1990s when Western companies were invited to develop the Orinoco oil reserves.
In the 2000s, Hugo Chavez launched a new wave of nationalization, forcing Western companies to establish joint ventures with the state-owned PDVSA, in which Western companies could not hold more than a 40% stake and, consequently, did not have decision-making power. Meanwhile, the production technologies for the Orinoco Belt belonged to American companies, and without their support, PDVSA could not maintain production levels.
Exports of petroleum products
As a result, since the second half of the 2010s, oil production has once again begun to decline, primarily in the production sector of the state-owned PDVSA company.
According to data as of the end of 2025, oil production in Venezuela stood at about 1-1.1 million barrels per day. Of that, about 400,000 barrels were produced in the vast Orinoco Belt and nearly half in the remaining fields.
Extraction features
Thus, as we can see, there are certain limitations in oil extraction, and even with such vast reserves, volumes of oil production are steadily declining. The problem lies in the quality and type of oil.
Oil is mainly extracted in two basins:
- The Maracaibo Basin is a major field with conventional oil. Reserves are estimated at 5.6-8 billion barrels. Conventional extraction technologies are used.
- The Orinoco Oil Belt (Orinoco Belt) contains gigantic reserves of extra-heavy crude oil, over 300 billion barrels, and according to some estimates, up to 650 billion barrels.
Heavy crude oils are oils consisting of longer carbon chains, which gives them a higher density and, more importantly, high viscosity.
The crude oil in the Orinoco Belt is not just heavy, but extra-heavy: it is so viscous that it cannot flow through a pipeline. Therefore, to extract it, the oil must be partially processed directly in the reservoir (underground). There are several technologies for developing such oil. For example, steam can be pumped into the reservoir, which heats the oil and makes it more fluid. It is also possible to carry out controlled underground oil combustion, where part of it burns and the other part is heated, becomes less viscous, and can be brought to the surface. In addition, the injection of chemical reagents may be used, and most often a combination of different approaches in specific proportions is required.
Although these approaches are well known, in practice only major American oil companies can organize industrial-scale production of such oil. The implementation of these approaches also requires the creation of appropriate infrastructure.
Venezuela and Belarus
We would like to recall that just before the 2007 nationalization, Belarusnafta began operating in Venezuela. Belarusnafta and PDVSA formed the joint venture Petrolera BeloVenesolana under requirements for foreign companies: 40% was owned by Belarusnafta and 60% by PDVSA.
The enterprise even reached a production level of about 5,000 barrels per day, but the fall in prices in 2008-2009, followed by sanctions pressure, led to the suspension of oil production. Afterwards, they also tried to resume oil production in Venezuela and ship it to Belarus amid the oil crisis and an effort to organize alternative oil supplies. But those shipments also stopped. Meanwhile, Belarusnafta remained in Venezuela, providing services for exploration, seismic surveys, and maintenance of production equipment.
There is no information about the cessation of this activity, therefore, it is quite possible that the companies of the Belarusnafta structure are still operating in Venezuela.
Conclusions and forecast
These changes are unlikely to have a significant impact on the current situation in the oil market in the short term. Production in Venezuela has now become negligible, and there are no prerequisites for a sharp increase in the near future. The infrastructure that previously supported production at a level of about 3 million barrels per day has been destroyed or has become obsolete. Its full restoration in the short term is impossible. In addition, there will be a shortage of qualified personnel, who left Venezuela en masse along with the companies they had worked for and that were forced out as a result of nationalization during the Chavez era.
Recently, oil exports have been de facto blocked, and a significant amount of oil has accumulated in storage. Therefore, once the blockade is lifted, there may be an increase in exports, but this will be a short-term rise aimed at drawing down inventories.
In the medium term, there may be a production increase as sanctions are lifted and there is greater freedom to trade the produced oil.
In the long term, everything depends on the policy regarding the development of the oil industry. If major American oil companies come to Venezuela and conditions are created to attract investment, infrastructure will likely be developed that will allow for increased production in the Orinoco Belt.
At the same time, statements by U.S. President Donald Trump may indicate that the presidential administration is actively working to facilitate the return of American companies in Venezuela. It may even involve creating some mechanism to compensate for losses from the 2007 nationalization.
“We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country,” Trump said. This could, to some extent, accelerate the coming of American companies and investments in Venezuela, but restoring the damaged infrastructure and training personnel will still take a considerable amount of time.
It should be noted that Venezuela is a member of OPEC. Since its production was declining, it was not subject to any oil production limits. However, with production increasing, this could potentially become a source of future disputes – limiting oil production in Venezuela at its current level seems unfair, since Venezuela has already been reducing production for a long time, and a lack of production limits for this country, or limits at higher levels, would require other countries to reduce production to keep its volume within the OPEC organization.
Another feature is that exports of heavy crude oil from Venezuela will increase. Although it’s still oil, different grades of oil cannot fully substitute one another. The output of petroleum products varies depending on the grade. Therefore, in the long term, increased production of heavier crude grades could widen discounts for other heavy crude grades relative to traded benchmarks such as Brent.
For Belarusnafta, this could be a certain opportunity. Increased production and infrastructure restoration in Venezuela could create additional demand for the services of Belarusian oil specialists. They could establish relationships with the world’s largest oil companies and gain additional advanced experience.
Материал доступен на русском языке: 303 млрд барэляў нафты і звышцяжкая рэальнасць: чаму Венесуэла не “залье рынак” хутка
