CARACAS — Eight months after President Trump predicted American companies would “rapidly rebuild Venezuela’s dilapidated oil industry,” not a single new petroleum deal has been finalized there with a U.S. firm. And according to a dozen oil industry professionals, senior U.S. officials, and Venezuela insiders who spoke to Axios, the U.S. Department of Energy bears much of the blame.
A Blunt Assessment From Inside the Administration
“We have no new concessions. No new deals. It is absolutely a problem,” a senior U.S. official told Axios. “The Energy Department is in charge of this and they have some explaining to do.”
The Energy Department and its defenders call the criticism misleading and unfair, but the underlying fact is not in dispute: eight months into a process Trump personally promised would move fast, the deal pipeline remains empty.
Why It Matters Now
The stakes have risen alongside global oil prices, which have climbed as the Iran war squeezes worldwide supply — a dynamic that puts fresh pressure on the absence of finalized deals in a country holding the largest estimated petroleum reserves on the planet.
Venezuela currently produces about 1.2 million barrels of oil daily, only slightly above the 1.1 million barrels it was producing before Trump’s blockade-like quarantine began in November and the January operation that removed Maduro.
At its historical peak in 1998, Venezuela produced roughly 3.4 million barrels daily, before Hugo Chávez took office the following year and the industry began its long decline.
How Trump Framed the Opportunity
Six days after Maduro’s January 3 capture, Trump met with oil industry officials and declared that Washington itself would decide which firms helped rebuild Venezuela’s industry. “You’re dealing with us directly,” Trump told the assembled executives. “You’re not dealing with Venezuela at all. We don’t want you to deal with Venezuela.”
That promise of fast, U.S.-directed access has run into two separate divides that have slowed everything since.
A Split Inside the Oil Industry
The industry itself is split between major global firms — Exxon, ConocoPhillips, and similar companies — that move relatively slowly and deliberately, and smaller independent firms known as “wildcatters,” known for speed and a higher tolerance for risk.
The majors publicly signaled early on that they were cool to returning to Venezuela given the uncertainty involved; wildcatters, by contrast, were eager to move in quickly.
A Split Inside the Administration
That industry divide is mirrored by one inside Trump’s own government. MAGA-aligned officials have pushed Washington to force PDVSA, Venezuela’s state oil company, to quickly adopt standard international contracting terms, per Trump’s own January 9 directive.
More cautious career officials at the Energy Department, with comparatively limited international oil-industry experience, have instead pushed a slower, more collaborative process with Caracas. A further complication arrived when twin earthquakes struck Venezuela on June 28, badly damaging the country and deepening domestic discontent even as the deal process remained stalled.
Claver-Carone Weighs In From the Outside
Mauricio Claver-Carone, Trump's former top unofficial adviser on Venezuela — whose contested exit from that role we covered last week — used the Axios report to level his own criticism at the Energy Department, accusing it of favoring major oil companies over the wildcatters. “Starting January 4th, it should have been carte blanche for all American producers to take risk. That’s America First,” he said. “Instead, American wildcatters got stuck with onerous conditions and a competitive disadvantage versus the mostly foreign majors that were in bed with Maduro.”
“Energy Won, and Now They Own This”
Over time, more wildcatters aligned themselves with MAGA allies and officials at the White House’s National Energy Dominance Council (NEDC), clashing directly with Energy Department bureaucrats. “NEDC was there early advocating for the wildcatters. But Energy is really turf-obsessed. And Energy won. The problem now is that they own this,” one oil industry insider told Axios.
In recent weeks, State Department officials have stepped in directly, urging acting Venezuelan President Delcy Rodríguez to sign more contracts with wildcatters, with deals reportedly being teed up for finalization by month’s end — though one industry official raised concern that some of those imminent deals could involve newly formed companies with no track record, no balance sheet, and potential ties to China or corrupt insiders in Caracas.
The Energy Department’s Defense
Officials there reject the characterization. “The Energy Department continues to work with Venezuelan officials and American energy companies of all sizes to unleash Venezuela’s resource potential, and we are delivering,” spokesperson Ben Dietderich said, pointing to oil production and export levels he described as higher than “few thought possible.”
Wildcatters working the ground in Caracas offered a more sympathetic read of the department’s difficulty: Alex Cranberg of Aspect Energy said officials are “drinking from a fire hose” trying to manage demand while keeping scammers out, while Bill Armstrong of Armstrong Oil & Gas said Energy Department and PDVSA officials are “working hard behind the scenes” to reorient the industry.
Still, two independent companies shared documents with Axios showing months of unanswered requests asking the department to force PDVSA to recognize standard international high-risk drilling contracts. “We’re months behind. We’d be lifting oil now if we got half the deference the majors got,” one wildcatter said.
A Push to Move the Portfolio to Rubio
For weeks, White House officials have fielded industry complaints alongside requests that Secretary of State Marco Rubio take over the Venezuela oil portfolio entirely from Energy Secretary Chris Wright.
Rubio has so far deferred to the Energy Department’s expertise, in part because many firms are explicitly asking Washington to “pick winners and losers” among competing companies — a request Rubio has been reluctant to grant. Meanwhile, according to the Wall Street Journal, the major oil companies are themselves now competing against one another to redevelop some of the same Venezuelan fields.
What the White House Says
White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers defended the pace of progress, saying the Energy Department “is ushering in unprecedented investment in Venezuela to restore its energy infrastructure,” and that it “continues to facilitate productive conversations between oil companies and the Venezuelan government to unleash its abundant resources, which benefits both the American and Venezuelan people.”
What Comes Next
The dispute adds another layer to an already crowded picture of competing U.S. interests inside Venezuela’s post-Maduro transition — alongside the political dialogue process now underway between Rodríguez’s government and a Washington-backed opposition faction, and the earlier, contested departure of Claver-Carone from his informal advisory role.
Whether the deals reportedly being finalized with wildcatters by month’s end actually materialize, and whether Rubio’s State Department ultimately takes a larger role in the process, will likely determine whether Trump’s original promise of a rapid Venezuelan oil rebuild starts showing results, or continues to stall amid competing factions within his own administration.
