Venezuela - US Conflict: News, Updates

[SolarWarden]

Hmm... Looks like now is the perfect time to bring home the opposition leader since the current government is responsible for the bad quality in building material.

 

[AZ_HighCountry]

Hmm... Looks like now is the perfect time to bring home the opposition leader since the current government is responsible for the bad quality in building material.

In Venezuela or California?

 

[Davey Crockett]

We now have our estimated death toll. Still over 46,000 missing.

 

[SolarWarden]

In Venezuela or California?

 

[Davey Crockett]

Venezuela earthquakes latest: Nearly 50,000 unaccounted for as death toll climbs​

At least 2,295 have died as a result of last week's earthquakes, officials said.

Venezuela earthquakes latest: Death toll climbs as rescuers continue searching

Nearly 50,000 people remain unaccounted for in the wake of Venezuela's powerful earthquakes as the death toll continues to climb, officials said.

abcnews.com

Depending on which list one uses, the death toll in Venezuela is potentially the 10th or 11th most deadly since 1900.

 

[Watandar]

The US carried out a coup in Venezuela earlier this year.

 

[Watandar]

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

US oil giant Chevron confirms it will expand operations in Venezuela

Oil giant Chevron is confirming that it is expanding its operations in Venezuela, just days after President Donald Trump announced an ambitious deal to develop the nation’s oil reserves and give the Pentagon a stake in the profits.

apnews.com

US oil giant Chevron confirms it will expand operations in Venezuela​

NEW YORK (AP) — Oil giant Chevron confirmed that it will expand operations in Venezuela after President Donald Trump announced an ambitious deal to develop the nation’s oil reserves and give the Pentagon a stake in the profits.

Chevron, the only U.S. oil company with a major presence in Venezuela, said Wednesday that it has been assigned additional acreage in the Orinoco Belt, where it has active operations. The company plans to invest more than $7 billion over the next five years, with the goal of more than doubling its current production to about 600,000 barrels a day.

“Chevron’s history in Venezuela spans more than a century, and our expanded position reflects our confidence in the country’s deep resource potential,” CEO Mike Wirth said in a prepared statement.

Venezuela holds the world’s largest proven reserves, totaling more than 303 billion barrels of crude oil, according to OPEC’s 2025 Annual Statistical Bulletin. Saudi Arabia is a distant second with 267 billion barrels.

Yet because Venezuela’s energy infrastructure is severely degraded and the nation is operating under international sanctions, its daily production is just over 1 million barrels, compared with the 10 million to 11 million barrels that Saudi Arabia produces each day. The U.S. produces almost 14 million barrels per day.

Chevron, the second-largest U.S. oil company, has had a presence in Venezuela since 1923.

“President Trump’s mission in Venezuela is straightforward. The mission is to bring peace freedom opportunity and prosperity to the people of Venezuela,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Wednesday in Caracas, Venezuela. “I believe that deals signed today … are critical in starting the ball rolling on peace opportunity and prosperity for everyone in Venezuela.”

The White House confirmed Monday that it is partnering with North American Blue Energy Partners as part of Trump ’s push to tap into Venezuela’s oil industry.

Yet the agreement has been met with skepticism from energy experts who say it will take years to revive Venezuela’s oil industry, which is in disarray after years of neglect.

There are also questions about whether Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodríguez has the authority to give Chevron 100-year rights over 17 oil fields with reserves of 65 billion barrels — and whether future Venezuelan or American administrations would overturn the agreement.

Venezuela’s constitution states that arrangements like the one that the United States announced this week must be approved by the National Assembly, which has not happened, wrote Ian Vásquez, vice president for international studies at the Cato Institute.

“The deal lacks legitimacy since it was agreed to with a dictatorship that has clung to power for decades through violence and by committing what was probably the largest electoral fraud in Latin American history in 2024,” Vásquez wrote. “The agreement was also reached under overwhelming pressure, military and otherwise, from the United States. As such, any future Venezuelan democracy will question the deal, thus undermining confidence in the current arrangement.”

Trump has eyed Venezuela’s oil since the capture of Nicolás Maduro and has pressed to get U.S. businesses back into the country. “We have Exxon going in, we have Chevron going in. We have our big oil companies going in,” he said in January.

He suggested again on Monday that other U.S. oil majors were preparing for a return, though other than Chevron, there is no evidence of that.

Exxon Mobil CEO Darren Woods said in January that Venezuela was “ uninvestable.” An Exxon spokesman said this week that “nothing has changed.”

The history of U.S. oil majors in Venezuela explains the hesitation.

Venezuela nationalized its oil industry in 1976 and created the state-owned company Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. A second nationalization occurred in 2007, when President Hugo Chávez pushed foreign oil companies into state-controlled joint ventures and seized the assets of companies that refused. Chevron agreed to a joint venture. Others, including Exxon and ConocoPhillips, refused, and Venezuela took their assets.

Trump has said that the agreement with Venezuela would “substantially lower” gasoline prices in the U.S. However, analyst have repeatedly warned that Venezuela’s dilapidated oil infrastructure will require years of restoration work and tens of billions of dollars to resuscitate.

“It could take 2 to 4 years to get new greenfield facilities online in the Orinoco region,” Amy Jaffe, director of the Global Energy, Climate, and Sustainability Lab at New York University, said in an email. “Other places where there is no pipeline and other kinds of support infrastructure could take longer.”


Meanwhile, the national average price for a gallon of regular gasoline jumped overnight to $4.12, according to the motor club AAA. That is 93 cents more than it cost at this point last year.

 

[Yellow is Okay]

Venezuela’s Maduro shares first photos from US detention​

Abducted Venezuelan leader’s post appears to show him in US detention, published two days after US-Venezuela oil deal.

Screenshot of a photo posted on former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's Telegram account on August 30, 2026 [@NicolasMaduroMoros]​

Former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has posted two photographs that appear to show him in a United States detention centre, where he has been held since his January abduction.

US special forces abducted Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, from the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, and flew them to the US. The pair are being held in a facility in Brooklyn, New York, on drug trafficking and firearm possession charges, which they deny.

“I am sending these photos as a small gift to all my grandchildren, to the boys and girls, and to all the good people who love us,” Maduro wrote in Spanish on the social media platforms X and Telegram.

“I want you to know that we are standing firm, with our hearts full of your love,” he added.

“We will remain strong, calm and confident: God is with us. God will provide. Venezuela will rise again.”

The two pictures, Maduro’s first photos from US detention, show him wearing a grey tracksuit and making peace signs with his hands. He appears to have lost considerable weight since his capture.

The posts were published on Sunday, but the timestamp on both pictures indicates they were taken on June 25, a day after twin deadly earthquakes killed more than 6,500 people and caused widespread destruction in northern Venezuela.

The AFP news agency said it had attempted to contact the detention centre to find out if the photos were authentic and had been authorised, but did not receive a response immediately.

The message was published two days after Maduro’s successor, interim President Delcy Rodriguez, announced a “historic” oil agreement allowing the US to operate oil fields in Venezuela.

Maduro does not have access to newspapers or the internet in prison, but he is allowed to speak by phone with his family and lawyers for approximately 300 minutes a month, with a maximum of 15 minutes per call, according to a source close to the former leader.

Maduro and his wife’s trial in the US is due to begin on 1 June 2027, a federal court in New York announced in late July.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/8/31/venezuelas-maduro-shares-first-photos-from-us-detention