During the US Energy Association’s State of Energy Industry Forum in Washington, D.C., US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright announced that the prices for US-managed sales of Venezuelan crude are now approximately 30% higher than when Venezuela was under sanctions.
The announcement comes after Washington’s first sale of Venezuelan oil, valued at approximately $500 million, following the arrest of former President Nicolas Maduro.
Wright said, “We are getting about a 30% higher realized price when we sell the same barrel of oil than they sold the same barrel of oil for three weeks ago… And a quarter or third of (that money) leaked out in corruption and was never going back to the government.”
U.S. special forces detained Maduro earlier this month, leading to former Vice President Delcy Rodriguez being sworn in as the Interim President. Meanwhile, other key figures in Maduro’s government continue to hold power.
“We have significant power right now, or influence, over Venezuela,” Wright continued. “We are controlling the sale of all of their oil and natural gas, and then we are taking those funds and placing them in American-controlled accounts and flowing them back to Venezuela.”
“In the short term, we saw in Iraq, if you disempower, de-Baathification, everybody that was in power, everybody that has the guns, and everybody that knows how to run the levers of the civil service in the government, that doesn’t go well,” Wright said. “So we are dealing with the people with the guns today. This is not a democratically elected government of the Venezuelan people.”
Wright concluded, “We want to see the return of law and order. We’re going to see, hopefully, significant growth in the economy, and then conditions so American businesses and others will go back into the country and invest.”
“A peaceful, market-based US ally, a star member of our hemisphere — that’s the vision,” he said.
Following Wright’s comments, Brent futures inched up 0.14% to $63.85 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude rose 0.2% to $59.31.
By CEO NA Editorial Staff
