US Preparations to Invade Venezuela

[Uomo Senza Nome]

This is a slow moving train wreck. How bad it will be is an open question. I know most are aware of the attacks on the alleged drug runners, today a large oil tanker was seized. Trump says to keep watch and he will begin ground operations soon. 

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-says-us-seizes-massive-venezuelan-oil-tanker-showdown-maduro-erupts-new-phase

[DarkAxel]

Soon as I heard that the USS Gerald Ford was heading to the area I knew that the US military presence was about more than intercepting drug boats. You don't need a fleet carrier for that, especially when you already have Marine aviation carriers in the area. 

[majorhavoc]

Moved from DICE to Current Events of Note.  This is obviously a sensitive topic with a distinct political dimension.  So tread carefully and respect forum rules.  Let's leave political figures out of the discussion whenever possible and restrict our discourse to verifiable facts, focusing on how it impacts prepping.  To our Latin American members/lurkers - we'd love your perspective as long as you can leave politics out of it. 

[Moab]

I didn't know this until a week ago:

Venezuela sits on the largest proven oil reserves in the world — roughly 300+ billion barrels. The deposits are mostly in:

1. The Orinoco Belt (Faja del Orinoco)

One of the largest heavy-oil deposits on Earth

Oil here is extra-heavy, thick, and tar-like — closer to bitumen

Requires dilution, upgrading, or blending to refine

Immense size, but expensive and technically challenging to produce


2. Maracaibo Basin

Older, more traditional oil fields

Mix of light and medium crude

Historically the core of Venezuela's production since the early 1900s

Production has declined sharply due to infrastructure decay


3. Eastern Venezuela Basin

Contains both conventional and heavy oil

Often tied to gas-associated fields


Summary

Venezuela's reserves are huge, but the majority is extra-heavy crude that needs complex extraction and refining. Combine that with political collapse, underinvestment, sanctions, and equipment failure — and production has fallen massively despite having enormous geological wealth.

********************************************

This isn't to say I disagree with the US controlling the world's most important commodities. To do otherwise would mean them falling into others hands. And that's not something I'm sure we can risk.

[Uomo Senza Nome]

They have lots of oil. The country could be fully developed like SA, UAE or any of the other emirates, with a high quality of life for it's citizens, but for you know, greed. 

[Uomo Senza Nome]

U.S. President Donald Trump announced;  "I am ordering a total and complete blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers going into, and out of  Venezuela". This escalates pressure on Nicolás Maduro's government through naval action, following earlier sanctions and military buildups to counter drug trafficking and regime change efforts.

A naval blockade is a formal act of war under international law, and could lead to heightened scrutiny of the operation at home and abroad; a partial blockade may achieve the same effects while remaining within legal bounds.
.

[NT2C]

[Uomo Senza Nome]

With Maduro gone the president is saying military operations in the area will cease. 

https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/loud-noises-heard-venezuela-capital-southern-area-without-electricity-2026-01-03/

It will be interesting to see if end up like Noriega who spent 30 years in prisons and then died there.

[Moab]

With Maduro gone the president is saying military operations in the area will cease.

https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/loud-noises-heard-venezuela-capital-southern-area-without-electricity-2026-01-03/

It will be interesting to see if end up like Noriega who spent 30 years in prisons and then died there.

Didn't they already offer him asylum someplace too? Like a few weeks ago? What made him think it wouldn't take us 15 minutes to completely take over his country? 

I also read a report, though, that stated his capture was negotiated. Like he agreed to it on terms of some sort. So who knows?

Venezuela has the largest oil deposits of anywhere on earth. Pretty obvious why we did it. We had to IMHO. Several other world powers would have if we didn't. 

[NT2C]

I also read a report, though, that stated his capture was negotiated. Like he agreed to it on terms of some sort. So who knows?

Negotiations:

Maduro: I'm never going to surrender!

USA: We have this bomb... we call it the MOAB...

Maduro: So, like, when can you pick me up?  Can I bring my wife?

[majorhavoc]

I also read a report, though, that stated his capture was negotiated. Like he agreed to it on terms of some sort. So who knows?

Negotiations:

Maduro: I'm never going to surrender!

USA: We have this bomb... we call it the MOAB...

Maduro: So, like, when can you pick me up?  Can I bring my wife?

The first offer was for the US to leave a fully gassed up speedboat docked in the harbor for his use.  Maduro held out for US-crewed helicopter.

[MacWa77ace]

I also read a report, though, that stated his capture was negotiated. Like he agreed to it on terms of some sort. So who knows?

Negotiations:

Maduro: I'm never going to surrender!

USA: We have this bomb... we call it the MOAB...

Maduro: So, like, when can you pick me up?  Can I bring my wife?

The first offer was for the US to leave a fully gassed up speedboat docked in the harbor for his use.  Maduro held out for US-crewed helicopter.

Yeah, speedboat or helicopter.

[Uomo Senza Nome]

With Maduro gone the president is saying military operations in the area will cease.

https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/loud-noises-heard-venezuela-capital-southern-area-without-electricity-2026-01-03/

It will be interesting to see if end up like Noriega who spent 30 years in prisons and then died there.

Didn't they already offer him asylum someplace too? Like a few weeks ago? What made him think it wouldn't take us 15 minutes to completely take over his country?

I also read a report, though, that stated his capture was negotiated. Like he agreed to it on terms of some sort. So who knows?

Venezuela has the largest oil deposits of anywhere on earth. Pretty obvious why we did it. We had to IMHO. Several other world powers would have if we didn't.

I guess you could have made that argument decades ago. The entirety of all the oil in Venezuela wouldn't fill a bucket in the Green River formation. 

[aikorob]

With Maduro gone the president is saying military operations in the area will cease.

https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/loud-noises-heard-venezuela-capital-southern-area-without-electricity-2026-01-03/

It will be interesting to see if end up like Noriega who spent 30 years in prisons and then died there.

Didn't they already offer him asylum someplace too? Like a few weeks ago? What made him think it wouldn't take us 15 minutes to completely take over his country?

I also read a report, though, that stated his capture was negotiated. Like he agreed to it on terms of some sort. So who knows?

Venezuela has the largest oil deposits of anywhere on earth. Pretty obvious why we did it. We had to IMHO. Several other world powers would have if we didn't.

I guess you could have made that argument decades ago. The entirety of all the oil in Venezuela wouldn't fill a bucket in the Green River formation.

maybe.............but I bet Conoco\Philips still want their infrastructure back and processing crude ASAP

[Moab]

@Uomo Senza Nome

"Key point: Venezuela's proven reserves are the largest in the world, roughly 303 billion barrels, which is more than Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Canada."

Proven Oil Reserves – Top Countries (approximate)
Proven reserves = oil that's known to be extractable with current tech and reasonably profitable conditions.
Proven Oil Reserves (billion barrels)
Rank
Country
1
Venezuela
~303 �
Visual Capitalist +1
2
Saudi Arabia
~267
3
Iran
~209
4
Canada
~164
5
Iraq
~145
6
UAE
~113
7
Kuwait
~101
8
Russia
~80
9
Libya
~48
10
United States
~35-55
Key point: Venezuela's proven reserves are the largest in the world, roughly 303 billion barrels, which is more than Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Canada. �
Visual Capitalist
Bar Chart (Oil Reserves by Country)
Below is a simplified graph showing how Venezuela stacks up relative to other top holders of oil reserves:
Copy code

Oil Reserves (billion barrels)
350 ┤
300 ┤ ██████████ Venezuela (~303)
250 ┤ █████████ Saudi Arabia (~267)
200 ┤ ███████ Iran (~209)
150 ┤ ██████ Canada (~164)
100 ┤ ████ Iraq (~145)
 50 ┤ ██ UAE (~113)
  0 ┼--------------------------------
The numbers are rounded approximations based on multiple data aggregations. �
Visual Capitalist +1
Things to Understand About These Numbers
Why Venezuela is #1 but not dominant in production
Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserve, but most of its crude is very heavy oil that's expensive and harder to refine. �
Wikipedia
Production has declined dramatically in recent decades due to underinvestment and political issues, so reserve size doesn't translate to current output. �
Reuters
Saudi Arabia vs Venezuela
Saudi Arabia's oil is generally lighter and easier (and cheaper) to produce, which is part of why it has historically dominated supply even if it doesn't have the absolute largest reserves. �
Wikipedia
Canada's big figure
Much of Canada's reserves are oil sands — oil bound up in sand and clay — which is technically recoverable, but more energy-intensive to extract than conventional crude. �
Wikipedia
Quick takeaways
Venezuela ≈ 303 B barrels of proven oil — highest in the world. �
Visual Capitalist
Saudi Arabia ≈ 267 B barrels — second largest but generally lighter crude. �
Visual Capitalist
Iran, Canada, Iraq follow behind. �
Visual Capitalist

If you zoom in you can see the above in a screenshot below:

You cannot view this attachment.

[Uomo Senza Nome]

303,000,000,000? Posers. The Green River Formation has at least 1,5,00,000,000,000 barrels of oil. Taken as a whole the US has at least 20,000,000,000,000 barrels of oil.

[tirls]

As of yet there is nothing concrete that the government is gone. Officials like Rodriguez and Cabello are still in the country, or at least there aren't information on them not being, and gang members supporting Maduro are patrolling the streets.

[DarkAxel]

IIRC, Venezuela's oil reserves are mostly heavy crude high in sulfur, which requires a lot more specialized processing to turn into gas, kerosene, and the like than the Saudi oil reserves, which are mostly light sweet crude that is easy to refine and produces more gas and the like for an equal amount of heavy crude. In short, gas made from Venezuelan oil is more expensive per gallon than gas made from the light sweet stuff. Which is probably why Maduro had his eyes on the Essequibo region of their neighbor Guyana, rich in crude of the light sweet variety. 

The US does have refineries in the states that were specifically configured to process Venezuelan oil from the time before Chavez nationalized his country's oil industry. If Venezuelan oil imports ramp up the US has the capacity needed to refine it. What this means for global oil prices I really don't know. 

I also have to wonder what the domestic response will be. There are radicals in the US who probably aren't happy about Maduro being captured, and in the current political climate there's no guarantee that protests will remain peaceful. There are also Iranian proxies that have a presence in Venezuela that may decide to strike at US forces or the mainland in retaliation. 

[Moab]

303,000,000,000? Posers. The Green River Formation has at least 1,5,00,000,000,000 barrels of oil. Taken as a whole the US has at least 20,000,000,000,000 barrels of oil.

Your counting rock as oil. But this has nothing to do with the fact we probably agree that the US should control it. Whether it's the largest or second largest oil reserve in the world. If we don't Russia or China will. And they will use that against us. 

But in terms of your argument:

Your comparing rock that has seen no financially viable attempt to turn it into usable oil for over 100 years. To oil in Venezuala that can be made usable with current technology. 

Your comparison is fundamentally wrong, and here's why.

You're comparing Venezuela's proved crude oil reserves to the Green River Formation's theoretical oil-shale resource. Those are not the same thing. Not even close.

Venezuela (~303 billion barrels)
That number refers to proved crude oil reserves:

It is actual liquid petroleum
Known location
Recoverable with existing technology
Economically viable at realistic oil prices
Already produced, transported, refined, and sold at national scale
Venezuela's oil is heavy and inefficient, but it is still oil. It comes out of the ground, goes into refineries, and runs economies today.

Green River Formation (trillions of barrels)

Green River does not contain oil. It contains oil shale — rock with kerogen in it.
Kerogen is not oil.

To get "oil" from Green River you must:

Mine or heat massive volumes of rock
Heat it to ~900°F (pyrolysis)
Consume huge amounts of energy and water
Manage enormous waste streams
Then upgrade the output into usable fuel
That's not extraction. That's manufacturing fuel from rock.

This is the key point that ends the argument:

Venezuela has oil.
Green River has rock that can theoretically be turned into oil — and has failed economically for over 100 years.

Why Green River is a fantasy, not a reserve
EROI (energy return on energy invested):

Venezuela crude (historical): ~10–20:1
Green River oil shale (best pilots): ~1–3:1
That's near the thermodynamic floor. Below ~5:1, industrial fuel stops making sense.

Cost per barrel (realistic):

Venezuela heavy crude: ~$30–60
Canadian oil sands: ~$50–80
Green River oil shale: ~$90–150+

Infrastructure reality:

Venezuela: wells, pipelines, ports, tankers, refineries, workforce

Green River: no commercial-scale production, no water solution, no waste solution, no investor appetite

Every serious attempt to commercialize Green River over the last century has failed. Not because of politics. Because the physics and economics don't work.

About the "20 trillion barrels in the U.S." claim:

That number is not proved, not recoverable, not economic, and not oil.

It's a chemistry thought experiment — "oil equivalent in place" — not an energy reserve.

By that logic, coal, trees, and plastic waste could all be counted as oil too. Serious analysts don't do this.

Bottom line:

Venezuela's oil runs cars, ships, and economies today.

Green River is a century-old science project that has never crossed the energy, cost, or water hurdles required to matter.

If anyone insists Green River is "bigger," they're not making an energy argument — they're repeating a fantasy based on counting rocks as oil.

[Uomo Senza Nome]

Nonsense. 

Green River (Wyoming) is in operation today. The US produced 67% of its oil from tight oil in 2024, the number and percent keeps climbing. The US is now far and away the world's largest oil producer and exporter of shale oil. No one else is even close anymore. 

Keep in mind shale production today was close to zero 15 years ago and the Peak Oil nutters were all saying we were going to implode and have a mass die off because there was no way to get tight oil out of the rocks. In fact if you research the old forum on the old site it is littered all over with that mess. The naysayers have proven to be incredibly inaccurate about getting oil from rocks. 

But nope, trillions and trillions of barrels of oil. Some enterprising folks seem to think they might be able to get up to 4 trillion barrels of oil from Green River. I gave the low estimate because that is what can be done today, with current methods. 

No matter what method you use to compute it, it is metric shit ton more than Venezuela will ever have, extractable today, with current technology.