Thick, unstable, solid: Venezuela's oil has very high processing requirements

Environmental experts warn that the U.S. push to exploit Venezuela's vast oil reserves could cause environmental damage for decades to come. It could also increase planet-warming pollution in a country already grappling with the legacy of a long-defunct oil industry. Euronews.

The warnings come amid heightened pressure from Washington following the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro earlier this month. Since then, the United States has taken steps to impose controls on Venezuelan oil exports, the country's main source of revenue, by seizing tankers it says were carrying crude in violation of U.S. sanctions and signaling plans to redirect Venezuelan oil to global markets under U.S. supervision.

The Trump administration has said it plans to sell between 30 million and 50 million barrels of Venezuelan crude oil worldwide, although it has not given a timeline. The proceeds will be held in U.S.-controlled accounts, which the administration says would benefit both Venezuelans and Americans.

Venezuela is already highly exposed to oil pollution

Industry analysts warn that the significant expansion of oil production in Venezuela would require years of investment and tens of billions of dollars to repair crumbling infrastructure, raising questions about how quickly - or whether - Trump's plans could realistically be implemented.

"There are storage facilities literally sinking into the ground, broken drilling tools and degraded infrastructure everywhere," said Pasha Mahdavi, an associate professor of political science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who studies energy management and political economy.

Venezuela's oil reserves are believed to be the largest in the world, estimated at 300 billion barrels. The country, which stretches from the Caribbean coast to the northern Andes, is already heavily exposed to oil pollution and ranks among the tropical countries with the fastest deforestation rates, according to Global Forest Watch, an online monitoring platform maintained by the World Resources Institute.

Venezuela produces heavy crude oil, which emits significantly more pollution than other forms of oil. This is because it requires more energy to extract and refine, which often involves burning natural gas, mostly methane.

A revival of Venezuela's oil industry would deepen environmental damage in a country already plagued by spills, gas leaks and crumbling infrastructure, with higher output expected to increase climate emissions and risks of spills in fragile ecosystems, several experts have warned.

The Venezuelan Observatory of Political Ecology, an environmental watchdog, has documented nearly 200 oil spills from 2016 to 2021, which have largely gone unreported by authorities.

Satellite data from Global Forest Watch, an online forest monitoring platform maintained by the World Resources Institute, shows that Venezuela has lost an estimated 2,6 million hectares of tree cover - roughly the size of North Macedonia - over the past two decades, largely due to agriculture, mining and fires, with oil activity contributing to forest loss in some production regions.

According to a 2025 report by the International Energy Agency, methane emissions intensity, or the ratio of methane released to natural gas produced, was far above the norm in Venezuela's oil and gas operations, with estimates showing upstream methane emissions approximately six times higher than the global average.

The US Department of Energy said that American oil and gas companies that will revamp Venezuela's oil industry have the highest environmental standards.

"As American investment in Venezuela increases, you can expect environmental conditions to improve," the statement said.

Venezuelan crude oil production is energy-intensive and carbon-intensive

Thick and sticky Venezuelan crude is high in sulfur, making it more difficult to extract and refine than other types of oil, such as lighter oil produced from U.S. shale deposits, said Diego Rivera Rivota, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Energy Policy at Columbia University.

"It's very dense, very unstable, very hard. In practice, that means that compared to other types of oil resources, it requires better infrastructure, higher energy consumption - it's much more energy-intensive - and therefore much more carbon-intensive," Rivota says.

However, many American refineries were designed decades ago to process this type of oil, making Venezuelan crude suitable despite its higher processing requirements.

"Even a modest increase in Venezuelan oil production could have climate implications on the scale of entire countries. Increasing production by about 1 million barrels per day-a level often cited as a short-term goal-would add an estimated 360 million tons of carbon dioxide annually from production. Further increases in production to about 1,5 million barrels per day could increase annual emissions to about 550 million tons, comparable to the emissions from roughly half of all gasoline-powered vehicles in the United States. And that's just the production side," says Mahdavi, noting that much larger emissions are generated when the oil is ultimately burned by consumers.

Venezuela's aging oil infrastructure increases risk of spills

Patrick Gailey of the NGO Global Witness believes Venezuela's oil system is among the worst maintained in the world after years of underinvestment, with aging pipelines, storage facilities and widespread gas flaring that increases the risk of spills and methane leaks. He says any rapid push to expand production is likely to prioritize production over pollution control, worsening the climate and environmental damage.

Kevin Book, director of research at ClearView Energy Partners, says there could be efforts to increase the efficiency of Venezuela's oil production, both economically and environmentally, with significant investment.

"The new investment will attract the latest technologies for methane capture and emissions management, not only for environmental reasons, but also because there is a valuable resource that can be captured and sold. And for that reason, there is actually some potential environmental advantage compared to the status quo, assuming that oil demand will grow anyway," says Book.

In recent public statements, US officials have focused on controlling oil sales, revenue, and repairing infrastructure, with little mention of environmental safeguards or climate impacts. President Trump, in both his first and second terms, has repeatedly rejected the scientific consensus on climate change and rolled back environmental and clean energy policies.