Venezuela is regarded as the country with the largest crude oil reserves (unrefined petroleum) in the world. Was this precisely what motivated the United States’ intervention against the leadership of the South American country on January 2?
In a report published last year by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), in 2024 it estimated that Venezuela would have reserves equivalent to about 303.3 billion barrels of crude, representing about 17% of global supply.
Trailing are Saudi Arabia, with 267 billion barrels, Iran, with 208.6 billion barrels, Iraq, with 145 billion barrels, and the United Arab Emirates, with 113 billion barrels. This is the top five countries with the largest oil reserves.
Why is Venezuela so rich in oil? The answer lies in its geological history.
According to Scientific American magazine, Luis Zerpa, an engineer at the Colorado School of Mines, explains that, from a geological point of view, the country is “in the perfect location.”
Venezuela is influenced by the Caribbean tectonic plate, by the South American plate and by the Nazca plate, Zerpa explains. The interaction among all these plates gave rise to the northern portion of the Andes mountain range, as well as to other elevated regions, and, at the same time, created three sedimentary basins in which oil and gas formed: one in the northeast of Venezuela, another in the northwest, and a third to the west.
Because of all these characteristics, Venezuela has more than 300 billion barrels of crude in its underground reserves. It is possible that the regime change brought about by the American intervention will open these reserves to exploration and, with that, release all the greenhouse gases that are currently trapped in them.
Although the level of emissions depends on many variables, such as the composition of the oil itself, it is estimated that, on average, a barrel of oil can release about 434 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent.
To know how much carbon dioxide will be released into the atmosphere if the Venezuelan reserves are extracted from the ground, simply multiply that number by 303 billion barrels. In a time of worsening climate crisis, and of all the effects it causes, releasing billions of kilograms of greenhouse gases into the air could be the drop that makes the cup overflow.
CNN reports that Venezuela’s oil is thicker and has an especially high concentration of greenhouse gases, which means that its extraction requires larger amounts of energy. Additionally, the large amount of sulfur contained in it makes refining more difficult and expensive and, of course, more environmentally impactful.
As if that were not enough, experts consulted by the American news outlet say that Venezuela’s oil infrastructure is old and not in the best condition, which greatly increases the risks of methane leaks, flaring and spills.
