Venezuela is unlikely to add more than 300,000 barrels per day of oil production by 2030, experts have warned, limiting Washington's gains from taking control of about a fifth of the country's proven oil reserves.
US President Donald Trump's administration has moved to take control of Venezuela's oil industry since capturing former leader Nicolas Maduro in January, with plans to bring in US companies to rebuild an industry crippled by years of underinvestment. Under the agreement, North American Blue Energy Partners (Nabep), led by Venezuelan oil baron Alejandro Betancourt, plans to invest up to $100 billion across 17 oil projects in the country. US company Chevron plans to invest $7 billion to double its Venezuelan output to 600,000 bpd over seven years.
Venezuela holds the world's largest proven oil reserves, at about 303 billion barrels, or nearly a fifth of the world's total. It was producing close to three million bpd at about the turn of the century, before years of sanctions and political turmoil degraded its energy infrastructure.
But turning Venezuela's vast reserves into marketable barrels will take years. Much of the country's resource lies in the Orinoco Belt as extra-heavy crude and bitumen that requires upgrading before it can be shipped and processed. Only a limited pool of refineries, notably in the US, is equipped to refine such grades.
Extra-heavy crude
"They have very low API gravity, sometimes under 10 degrees, which is extremely heavy, very viscous," said Homayoun Falakshahi, head of crude oil analysis at Kpler. "It's almost like solid. You can almost compare it with the tar sands in Canada."
Producing those barrels requires upgraders and other surface facilities to convert the crude into a lighter synthetic grade.
"These are huge types of equipment that you just cannot build in a couple of years," Mr Falakshahi said. "It's really the nature of the oil that is the main hurdle to prevent a lot of fast growth in the output."
Venezuela is producing just above one million bpd, according to Opec secondary sources. Rystad Energy forecasts output at about 1.4 million bpd by 2028, with three million bpd not reached until about 2040. The estimates are far more conservative than the two million bpd by the end of the decade that US Energy Secretary Chris Wright said was possible earlier this week, before the deal.
"There's a lot of ifs on those Nabep projects right now," said Radhika Bansal, senior vice president at Rystad Energy, covering Latin American upstream. "When you compare that to Chevron's $7 billion commitment, it's massive. Whether that actually materialises is yet to be seen."
Low expectations
Mr Falakshahi estimates the 17 projects have a combined capacity of about 1.5 million bpd, theoretically enough to take Venezuela close to three million bpd if existing production holds. But most are greenfield or new developments, meaning the barrels are years away.
"We're talking six years from now, but that's super optimistic," he said. "So most likely, I think six to 10 years, or the middle of the next decade."
He expects the greenfield barrels to arrive about 2033 or 2034, rather than by the end of this decade.
He also expects the projects to underdeliver. "Usually with these projects, they are a bit delayed, they are a bit under the target," he said. "If the projects technically could produce 1.5, in reality they would get to 1.2, 1.3."
The fastest gains are more likely to come from brownfield or existing projects operated by international companies already in Venezuela, including Chevron, Eni, Repsol and Maurel & Prom. Those producers can build on existing wells and infrastructure rather than starting from scratch.
"Within the next couple of years, we expect mostly the growth to come from these IOC [international oil company] players," said Sai Krishna, senior research analyst at Rystad. More upgraders will also be needed to move Orinoco volumes to US Gulf Coast refineries, he added.
Political shifts
The political shift has already changed Venezuela's oil trade. Exports to the US surged by 238 per cent to average 515,000 bpd in the first eight months of 2026, according to Kpler, following Washington's overthrow of Mr Maduro. Shipments to India grew tenfold to about 224,000 bpd, while flows to China fell by a hundredfold to just 5,000 during the same period.
Total Venezuelan exports averaged 1.11 million bpd, up from 944,000 bpd last year, although US-bound volumes peaked at about 834,000 bpd in July before easing to 437,000 bpd in August.
The surge in US-bound volumes reflects Washington's push to control Venezuelan oil and bring it back into global trade. US Gulf Coast refiners are also among the few facilities with the complexity and equipment needed to process the country's heavy crude.
Opec and the refining conundrum
China and India can take more barrels when the arbitrage works, Mr Falakshahi said, as can Mediterranean refineries equipped to process sour crude.
Those constraints also limit how quickly the global refining system can absorb Venezuelan barrels.
"Complexity indexes are high," said Nikhil Agarwal, managing director at Dubai-based Globestar Energy. "It's not that they will just take it out and everybody will buy. It's limited."
Venezuela's return to higher production could also revive a long-running tension with Opec, of which it is a founding member. Caracas has been outside the group's quota system for about a decade, giving it little incentive to leave now, Mr Falakshahi said.
That could change if Opec sought to impose a production ceiling of about 2.5 million bpd, he said.
"The taboo has probably been already broken with the UAE's departure earlier this year," Mr Falakshahi said.
