US controls $13 billion in Venezuelan oil revenues with little transparency, raising congressional concerns

The Trump administration has generated more than $13 billion in revenue from Venezuelan oil sales this year but has provided almost no public explanation regarding the final destination or usage of these funds.

The Financial Times (FT) calculated Venezuela’s estimated oil revenues using data on crude oil shipments from the country since January, compiled by the shipping and data analytics platform Kpler.

To determine these figures, the FT utilized price assessments from the pricing agency Argus Media for Merey crude—an extra-heavy grade produced in Venezuela—as well as Boscan and Hamaca, two less common Venezuelan crude grades.

The pricing data does not cover all varieties of Venezuelan petroleum and begins only from February onward.

The value of the barrels shipped since January for which direct price estimates are available currently stands at approximately $11.5 billion.

However, based on historical pricing trends, it is estimated that the barrels without established price assessments bring the total figure to more than $13 billion.

The Venezuelan government established a website to track the revenue generated from US-managed oil sales, but the site currently contains only a single entry: a $300 million transfer completed in March.

The US seized control of Venezuela’s oil exports and suspended certain sanctions in January, after removing Nicolás Maduro and installing Vice President Delcy Rodríguez as leader.

Oil revenues account for approximately one-quarter of Venezuela’s GDP. The easing of sanctions was widely expected to provide a significant boost to an economy that was in crisis even before the devastating earthquakes that struck the country last month.

However, six months after the US seized control of the funds, economists point out that evidence of an economic recovery in Venezuela remains relatively weak.

This lack of recovery is seen as a potential sign that Washington is not returning the entirety of the revenues to Caracas.

Washington has offered contradictory explanations regarding what it has done with the money, ranging from a presidential executive order describing its role as maintaining “calm” to statements by President Donald Trump asserting that the US has “made a lot of money” from Venezuelan oil.

US lawmakers from both political parties have begun pressing the administration to clarify where the money has gone and what measures are in place to prevent corruption during its allocation.

Joaquin Castro, a prominent Democratic Congressman, told the FT that Congress has been “kept in the dark” on the matter.

“Trump’s intervention in Venezuela has been about oil, power, and corruption from the very beginning; billions of dollars in Venezuelan oil revenue are being controlled by the Trump administration without transparency or safeguards,” Castro said.

During a hearing on Tuesday, Representative María Elvira Salazar, a Republican from South Florida, called for the public release of reports on these funds, emphasizing “the importance of transparency regarding where the money is going.”

The fate of Venezuela’s oil revenues has become an even more urgent issue following two devastating earthquakes on June 24. The UN estimates that the cost of damage to buildings and infrastructure alone will reach $37 billion.

Benjamin Gedan, a former senior official responsible for Latin America at the White House during the Obama administration, said that Democrats could investigate the oil funds if they win control of one or both chambers of Congress in November.

“This would be a really juicy target. You can anticipate a lot of subpoenas and requests for testimony regarding the distribution of Venezuelan oil revenues,” Gedan said.

Shortly after the January intervention, President Trump stated that the revenues would be under his control. Since then, the administration has issued a series of conflicting statements on how the oil funds might be utilized.

The initial executive order issued in January stated that the funds belong to the government of Venezuela and would be held in US government accounts in a “fiduciary and official capacity.”

Conversely, the US Department of Energy stated that the funds would be distributed “for the benefit of the American people and the Venezuelan people.”

In June, Trump stated that the US had recovered the cost of its military operation in Venezuela “28 times over” through oil, adding that the US “also made a lot of money.”

“It took 48 minutes to win that war. We brought out millions of barrels of oil,” Trump said.

In April, senior State Department official Michael Kozak said that approximately $3 billion in oil revenues had been sent to Venezuela and that the accounting firm KPMG was auditing the bank accounts.

Kozak stated that the administration would submit quarterly reports on the funds, but Democrats on the Foreign Affairs Committee say they have received no information since then.

US officials indicate that control of the oil funds is being used to exert pressure on Rodríguez, who currently governs the country partly under instructions from Washington.

During a congressional hearing last Wednesday, Kozak said: “It is their money but… they need our permission.”

The official noted that funds have been released to cover expenses such as public sector salaries and oil industry equipment.

The State Department stated that under this system, “billions of dollars have been injected into the Venezuelan economy,” adding that “financial monitoring continues to ensure the funds benefit the Venezuelan people.”

Given that Venezuela was forced to sell its oil at a steep discount on international markets to bypass US sanctions until January, many economists expected the country to experience a robust economic recovery this year. The government introduced a new resource law to encourage oil and gas investment, and production has increased this year.

However, Francisco Rodríguez, a Venezuelan economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, pointed out that the official first-quarter growth rate was 2.5%, representing the lowest level in five years.

“Venezuela likely did not grow faster in the first quarter, despite rising oil revenues, because the US did not transfer all of the increased oil revenues to the Venezuelan government,” Rodríguez said.

José Guerra, a Venezuelan economist and former opposition lawmaker, said that oil revenues should be significantly higher than in recent years. “Where is the money? There is no transparency, and the US government is not giving us information,” he said.

Alejandro Grisanti, director of Ecoanalítica, a consultancy specializing in Venezuela, noted that there have been signs of large-scale dollar inflows over the past two months.

Grisanti expected the economy to accelerate in the fourth quarter of the year, but said the earthquake would likely delay this recovery until the middle of next year.

Since the earthquake, Rodríguez has been lobbying for access to funds held abroad, including assets held by the IMF and Venezuelan gold held in the custody of the Bank of England pending the outcome of a lawsuit.

The US has set aside a $386 million aid package for disaster relief and has deployed hundreds of troops to Venezuela to assist with relief efforts.

John Barrett, the US Chargé d’Affaires in Caracas, stated this month that money from the oil revenue accounts has also been “allocated for this specific reconstruction effort,” though he did not specify the amount.

US officials noted that the estimated oil revenue figure does not include revenues from mining exports, a portion of which has also been collected by the government.