First Venezuelan Oil Cargo Under US-NABEP Deal Arrives in Texas for Sale to Exxon and Citgo

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — The first cargo of Venezuelan crude under a deal between the United States and producer NABEP unloaded in Texas on Tuesday, and it will be sold by the U.S. government to refineries run by Exxon Mobil and Venezuelan-owned Citgo Petroleum, a White House official told Reuters.

NABEP confirmed in a statement that it supplied 1 million barrels of Venezuelan oil as part of the deal. Two tankers carrying the crude arrived in Corpus Christi, according to the company. President Donald Trump visited the port on Tuesday, where one of the vessels carrying the heavy crude served as a backdrop for his speech.

“They’ve sent me as a gift a boatload of a million barrels of oil, and I’m giving that to the United States of America,” Trump told reporters. He later called it the “first shipment of BILLIONS of Barrels to come” in a post on Truth Social.

The government received the oil at no cost, the White House official told Reuters. NABEP’s statement first described the shipment as part of Washington’s right to buy 20 percent of production at cost, with no markup. The statement was later updated to say the cargo came at no cost to U.S. taxpayers.

Terms of the deal and rising output

The delivery is the first from an arrangement that gives Washington a 35 percent stake in NABEP’s parent company and discounted access to crude it produces, according to Reuters. The pact was struck after U.S. forces captured and removed former President Nicolas Maduro from power in January. It handed NABEP 14 additional oilfields on top of the three it already had in Venezuela, without a competitive process, Reuters reported.

“This first shipment since the US-NABEP deal will be followed by thousands of such arrivals,” NABEP CEO Alejandro Betancourt said in the company’s statement. He said the cargo reached Texas in just over a week, compared with more than a month for crude from the Middle East.

NABEP has said the 17 fields it controls in Venezuela hold an estimated 65 billion barrels of oil reserves. The company’s total output reached 223,509 barrels of oil equivalent per day as of Oct. 19, up from about 18,000 barrels per day two years ago, Reuters reported. Betancourt said last week that output at Petrozamora, its largest active project, had risen to 115,000 barrels per day.

“We’re celebrating the greatest oil victory in history. To the victor belongs the spoils, right?” Trump said at the port, according to Reuters. The shipment gives Trump a chance to present access to cheaper crude as evidence his policies are delivering economic benefits ahead of the midterm elections, Reuters reported, with fuel costs a possible weak point for Republicans. In Texas, Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton faces Democrat James Talarico in a closely watched race that could help determine control of the Senate.

NABEP said it directly employs more than 5,000 people and supports over 10,000 contractor jobs across Venezuela, and it is targeting production of more than 1 million barrels of oil per day in the near term.

Reporting based on coverage by Reuters and NABEP.