Oil prices globally remained flat yesterday with a small increase recorded on Sunday after the capture of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, by the United States (US) military over the weekend.
On Sunday, US crude oil fell 31 cents, or 0.54%, to US$57.01 per barrel. Global benchmark brent fell 22 cents, or 0.36%, to US$60.53 per barrel.
As of the time of going to print the price of West Texas Intermediate oil has gone down a little to US$57.20 from US$57.69.
Brent oil’s price is still around US$60.72.
Venezuela is one of the founders of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) and currently holds the largest proven crude oil reserves in the world at 303 billion barrels, or about 17%, of the global total, according to the US Energy Information Administration.
Currently, Chevron is the only US oil major operating in Venezuela.
However, although the country has the world’s largest proven oil reserves, production has been minimal over the years due to US sanctions and a lack of investment.
A joint statement by Opec+ says current market conditions remain supportive and the oil market remains balanced despite the Venezuelan president’s capture.
The statement says there has been an overproduction of oil since January 2024, and therefore supply is more than sufficient to meet demand.
“The countries will continue to closely monitor and assess market conditions, and in their continuous efforts to support market stability, they reaffirmed the importance of adopting a cautious approach and retaining full flexibility to continue pausing or reverse the additional voluntary production adjustments,” the statement reads.
Opec+ is made up of Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Algeria, and Oman.
Meanwhile, president Donald Trump has said the US will “run” the country until a new president is put in place.
Venezuela’s supreme court installed Delcy Rodriguez, who ironically oversees the country’s state-run oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela, as interim president.
Trump has said US companies will be going into the country to fix it and spend billions on the oil sector.
“We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country,” he has said.
On Saturday, special US forces executed a large-scale US operation, successfully capturing Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, and transporting them to New York.
The two have been charged with narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, and weapons offences.
