Washington’s takeover of more than a fifth of Venezuela’s oil reserves in a deal officially signed by U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright on 2 September was as unexpected as it was dramatic, with President Donald Trump’s comment a few days earlier that it is “the biggest oil deal in world history” looking justified from several perspectives.
From a pure volume standpoint, the deal covers 65 billion barrels of proven crude oil reserves (out of Venezuela’s total 303 billion barrels) across 17 fields. To put that…