Venezuela calls on OPEC to counter US threats | Oil and Gas News | USAEMALL.com

Maduro asks oil-producing bloc to help protect Venezuela’s oil reserves from US ‘aggression’.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has called on the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to help his country counter “growing and illegal threats” from the United States and its president, Donald Trump.

In a letter to fellow members of the bloc of major oil-producing countries on Sunday, Maduro accused the US of trying to “seize” Venezuela’s oil reserves, the world’s largest.

“I hope to count on your best efforts to help stop this aggression, which is growing stronger and seriously threatens the balance of the international energy market, both for producing and consuming countries,” Maduro said, according to a copy of the letter published by state broadcaster TeleSUR.

Maduro also “formally denounced” the “use of lethal military force against the country’s territory, people and institutions”, both to OPEC and the larger group of OPEC+ countries.

While Venezuela holds the world’s largest proven oil reserves, estimated at 303 billion barrels as of 2023, it exported just $4.05bn worth of crude oil in 2023, far below other major-oil producing countries, in part due to US sanctions imposed during the first Trump presidency.

Along with Iran, Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, the Latin American country was a founding member of OPEC in 1960, with its members cooperating to control oil supply and influence the price of oil in the decades that followed.

Military buildup

Maduro’s letter comes a day after Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform that Venezuela’s airspace was closed, without explaining further.

“To all Airlines, Pilots, Drug Dealers, and Human Traffickers, please consider THE AIRSPACE ABOVE AND SURROUNDING VENEZUELA TO BE CLOSED IN ITS ENTIRETY,” Trump wrote.

Caracas called Trump’s statement a “colonialist threat”.

Maduro’s government has maintained for months that the Trump administration’s significantly escalating military presence in the Caribbean is directed at gaining access to the country’s oil and gas reserves.

The White House has claimed that it is focused on combating drug trafficking, though critics have pointed out that Washington’s own data shows that Venezuela is not a significant source of drugs arriving in the US.

At least 83 people have been killed in US strikes on vessels that Trump claims were carrying drugs. Human rights advocates have decried the attacks as extrajudicial killings that violate international law.

The US has also deployed a considerable military presence to the Caribbean region, including the world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R Ford, other warships, thousands of troops and F-35 fighter jets.

‘Drill, baby drill’

As president, Trump has promised to significantly ramp up oil production, fulfilling a promise from his 2023 re-election campaign to “drill, baby drill”.

In late November, the Trump administration announced new plans to drill for oil off the California and Florida coasts for the first time in decades.

By contrast, many of the island countries in the Caribbean region are calling on fossil-fuel dependent countries to transition to other sources of energy, as they struggle to respond to tropical storms and other disasters, which are becoming more frequent and severe due to climate change.