WASHINGTON — The White House on Monday said it’s partnering with North American Blue Energy Partners as part of U.S. President Donald Trump’s push to tap into Venezuela’s oil industry, setting up a deal that will give the Pentagon a stake over roughly a fifth of the country’s vast oil reserves. The Trump administration released more details about the agreement on Monday night, days after Trump announced what he described as the biggest oil deal in history. The sweeping deal has been met with skepticism from analysts who say it will take years to revive Venezuela’s production, but Trump and his aides are pitching it as a chance to develop a new oil giant in the Western Hemisphere. As part of the deal, the U.S. is creating a private company as part of a joint venture with NABEP — a detail the White House withheld for days. NABEP, owned by Venezuelan businessman Alejandro Betancourt, is already the second largest operator in Venezuela behind Chevron. Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodríguez is giving the company 100-year rights over 17 oil fields with proven reserves of 65 billion barrels. Many of those fields were previously owned by Russian or Chinese firms, the White House said. The deal will give the Pentagon a 35 per cent ownership stake in the company, and the State Department will get a guarantee to purchase 20 per cent of the output at cost, the White House disclosed Monday. Betancourt’s company has agreed to put up US$100 billion in new oil infrastructure. Trump has been pushing to boost oil production in Venezuela since the January military mission that captured then-president Nicolás Maduro on federal narcoterrorism and drug trafficking charges. The White House claimed the deal would be “at zero cost” to the U.S., and said the government would have veto power on board members — the majority of whom would be U.S. citizens. “NABEP will have reputable U.S. auditors, lawyers, and advisers and the U.S. government’s agreement with NABEP is governed by U.S. law and is subject to the jurisdiction of U.S. courts,” the White House said in a fact sheet about the deal. Former U.S. government energy advisers have cautioned that the deal comes with political risk, since future administrations in Venezuela or the United States could challenge the deal. Collin Binkley, The Associated Press
