The National Assembly of Venezuela, where the government has an absolute majority, approved on Tuesday 1er September, the agreement “historical” on oil concluded with the United States which will take control of 17 fields.
THE “support for the binational energy treaty between the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and the United States of America (…) is approved »declared the President of the Assembly Jorge Rodriguez, brother of the interim head of state, Delcy Rodriguez, after a show of hands. A handful of opposition MPs abstained, saying they were waiting to see the text.
A large part of the opposition had boycotted the 2025 legislative elections, believing that the vote would not be fair, a few months after the contested victory of Nicolas Maduro in the presidential election, according to them, tainted by fraud.
The oil deal that Donald Trump described on Friday as“historical” and whose conclusion was confirmed the next day by Mme Rodriguez, allows the United States to exploit 17 Venezuelan oil fields whose potential is estimated at 65 billion barrels. Venezuela estimates the wealth created over twenty-five years at $209 billion. US Energy Secretary Chris Wright was expected to arrive in Venezuela in the evening, likely to sign the deal on Wednesday.
Opposition demands full text
“Who is this underground oil for? To those who want the power grid to continue to fail, to those who want us not to be able to build the hospitals we want and need, to those who want us not to build more schools, and to those who want us not to pay decent wages”launched Jorge Rodriguez.
“Venezuela has the first oil reserves and it is the 20e country to export it. Number 20! And some want this state of affairs to continue”he continued, specifying that we had to wait for the contract to be signed to know its exact content.
Opposition MP Luis Emilio Rondon, for his part, called for more transparency. “We have the need and the obligation to know what is written in small (…)the clauses”, he emphasized. “And, in the name of transparency, we demand that we be given the full and complete text of what was agreed (…) because it’s not just anything, it’s a long duration, it’s a significant volume. We announce that, despite our agreement with the convention, we cannot vote on the text”.
