Crude oil prices fell yesterday after Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were detained by US (US) troops, sparking concerns about global crude oil production.
US crude oil prices fell 31 cents or 0.54% to $57.01 a barrel.
Meanwhile, Brent, the global benchmark, fell 22 cents or 0.36% to $60.53 a barrel.
US President Donald Trump explained that the main goal of the military operation is to revive American oil companies' investments in Venezuela, which have long been damaged.
In a press conference at Mar-a-Lago, Florida, Trump also said that the world's largest oil companies are now being asked to invest billions of dollars to repair the country's badly damaged oil infrastructure.
Venezuela, as a founding member of OPEC, has the world's largest proven crude oil reserves with a total of 303 billion barrels or about 17% of the global total, according to the US Energy Information Administration.
While Venezuela's oil production once reached 3.5 million barrels per day in the late 1990s, that figure has now fallen to around 800,000 to 1.1 million barrels per day, according to energy consulting firm Kpler.
As of the end of the fourth quarter of 2025, Chevron was the only major US oil company still operating in Venezuela, exporting around 140,000 barrels per day.
Goldman Sachs economist Daan Struyven also stressed that the country's oil production could potentially rebound if a new, stable government is formed and economic sanctions are fully lifted.
