The United States assault on Venezuela threatens to trigger a brand new rise within the worth of oil | Economy | EUROtoday

The aid that the massive oil-consuming international locations had discovered with the minimize skilled within the worth of a barrel of oil within the final 4 years, coinciding with the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, now threatens to be stopped by Trump’s assault on Venezuela and the affect that this will have on the charges that these nations pay for crude oil.

Since reaching highs in March 2022 —at $128 per barrel— the worth has plummeted to shut final 12 months round $60, which represented a drop of greater than 50% and a return to the degrees of early 2021. In 2025, the minimize was 20%.

The newest figures from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which brings collectively the world’s largest producers, reduce – however solely partially – this attainable affect. Venezuela’s crude oil manufacturing has been reducing weight lately: in 2023 it reached 783,000 barrels per day, simply 2.9% of the OPEC whole.

The markets might, nevertheless, give extra significance to reserves than to manufacturing: when it comes to reserves the Latin American nation does have a number one function, with 303,000 million barrels, which represents 19.3% of the whole and locations it because the nation with the biggest oil reserves on the planet, above Saudi Arabia (267,230 million) or Iran (208,600 million).

In a report dated mid-December, the American financial institution Citi already warned {that a} continued escalation in tensions with the United States “could endanger Venezuela’s oil exports and shipments, which would represent a short-term upward impulse for oil.” The central state of affairs that it dealt with, nevertheless, was that the barrel of Brent would proceed to say no within the first quarter of 2026 because of extra world provide. But, in a bullish state of affairs, pressured by provide interruptions because of geopolitical tensions, the financial institution anticipated that the worth of a barrel might rise to $75.

The affect in Spain

In his battle to curb the liquidity of the Venezuelan authorities, Donald Trump final March revoked the license of a number of oil firms, together with the Spanish firm Repsol, to purchase crude oil from Venezuela. A choice that has had a macroeconomic and different enterprise affect. The first is that oil imports from Venezuela to Spain plummeted by 70.2% in 2025, going from 2.5 million tons between January and October 2024 to 745,000 tons in the identical interval of 2025.

The firm most affected by this veto is Repsol, which remains to be pending to get better the 586 million euros that the Venezuelan Government owes it. In 2016, the oil firm granted a mortgage of 1,110 million euros to the Venezuelan state oil firm PDVSA and the Maduro authorities promised to repay it by delivering crude oil by the three way partnership Petroquiriquire.

In reality, Repsol acquired oil from Venezuela till March primarily based on two ideas. On the one hand, as fee in variety for that debt; and on the opposite, as fee in variety for the exercise carried out by the agency there. Repsol extracts fuel (it’s 85% of its enterprise) which is used to provide its mixed fuel cycles, that are the lifeline of its system.