US releases report on $12bn from Venezuelan oil, mineral resources

SaveSharefacebookxwhatsapp-strokecopylinkCargo ships are docked at the El Palito refinery pier near Puerto Cabello, Venezuela, November 22, 2025 [File: Juan Carlos Hernandez/Reuters]By Umar FarooqPublished On 12 Nov 202612 Nov 2026The United States Department of State has released a report detailing what it says the US has done with more than $12bn in revenue from Venezuelan oil and mineral resources, nearly a year after it abducted the country’s leader, Nicolas Maduro.The disclosure is part of an effort to “promote transparency and accountability in the management of these funds”, says the 53-page report, released on Thursday.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemslist 1 of 3Trump touts Venezuelan oil at Texas rally ahead of US midtermslist 2 of 3Venezuela’s Machado lauds Trump for ‘freedom’, urges 2027 electionslist 3 of 3US urges Venezuela to follow phased plan for democratic transitionend of listIn January, US forces conducted a raid on the Venezuelan capital of Caracas, capturing Maduro and his wife and bringing them to New York City, where they are currently facing charges related to drug trafficking and torture.Venezuela’s then-vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, took over after Maduro’s abduction and has since made agreements with Washington that saw the US take a direct stake in profits earned from the export of oil and other mineral resources from the South American country.Since removing Maduro from power, the Trump administration has sought to directly control who buys natural resources from Venezuela and who earns profits from those sales.US President Donald Trump issued an executive order in January establishing special bank accounts that would hold revenue from those transactions, to be eventually distributed back to Venezuela in a controlled manner.Trump has made Venezuela a central part of his political narrative, touting the revenue he said the US would receive from sales of the country’s oil during election campaigning in the run-up to the midterm elections that were held earlier this month. Venezuelan rights activists have expressed concern that Washington may give outsized importance to oil revenues and take little interest in backing democratic reforms after the removal of Maduro.The report released on Thursday covers flows into and out of US-controlled accounts between January 3, 2026 and September 30, 2026. The State Department has also contracted private Washington, DC-based auditing firm KPMG to examine the transactions.The US took in more than $12.26bn from “verified and approved entities engaging in authorized activities” in Venezuela during that time, according to the report. Most of that flow came from crude oil and petroleum-based revenue, but it also included deposits stemming from transactions involving gold, minerals, and fertilisers.More than $12bn of that revenue has been disbursed as of September 30, with some $169m remaining in the account, according to the report.The US initially set up an account in the Qatar National Bank in January to take in funds from entities looking to buy authorised oil and other minerals from Venezuela. Approximately $500m was initially deposited into that account, with almost all of it distributed back to Venezuelan entities by late January, when a separate, dedicated US Treasury-controlled account was set up to handle future transactions.The current account, controlled directly by the US Department of the Treasury, has taken in more than $12bn in funds, from about 20 depositors, whose identities are redacted in the State Department’s report. Approximately 99 percent of those funds were related to the purchase of oil, according to the report.By the end of September, the State Department report says, nearly all of those funds had been distributed to a set of Venezuelan banks, to be used in foreign exchange interventions, transactions where banks sell those dollars to reduce the amount of local currency floating around and prop up the currency’s value, in this case the Venezuelan bolivar.The report is heavily redacted and does not provide details about the final recipients of the more than $12bn in funds that was distributed in Venezuela, although it does note that approximately $9.4bn went to “legal entities” and $2.9bn to “individuals”.