Donald Trump says Venezuela will send 50m barrels of crude oil to United States, money to be controlled by him

US President Donald Trump has announced that Venezuela will hand over an enormous amount of crude oil, with that money to be controlled by him.

“I am pleased to announce that the Interim Authorities in Venezuela will be turning over between 30 and 50 MILLION Barrels of High Quality, Sanctioned Oil, to the United States of America,” Mr Trump announced on Truth Social.

“This Oil will be sold at its Market Price, and that money will be controlled by me, as President of the United States of America, to ensure it is used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States!”

Venezuela is sitting on an estimated 300 billion barrels of crude oil, something Mr Trump says will “flow freely” after he directed an attack on the capital of Caracas, which forced a regime change.

The announcement by Mr Trump is one of the first indications of how diplomacy between the US and Venezuela may continue while the White House runs the South American country.

The first exchange of oil comes with a hefty value. Venezuela sits on heavy, sour crude oil and currently produces around 934,000 barrels a day.

With crude oil trading around $US56 ($83) a barrel, 50 million barrels could bring in $US2.8 billion ($4.1 billion).

“I have asked Energy Secretary Chris Wright to execute this plan, immediately,” Mr Trump said.

“It will be taken by storage ships, and brought directly to unloading docks in the United States.”

That first exchange is only a small sliver of what Venezuela is sitting on.

How much oil Mr Trump plans to access and keep funds from, as part of the US running Venezuela, remains to be seen — but what we do know is that there is about to be a sizeable and lengthy investment.

Mr Trump says that US oil giants will be brought into Venezuela to rebuild oil production, something that some experts claim could take 10 years. However, the US President says with 18 months, a system will be up and running.

“We’re going to have our very large US oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country,” Mr Trump said on Saturday

Some suggest a return to Venezuelan oil production glory days would require an annual $US10b a year investment from US oil giants like Chevron, ExxonMobil and Conoco Phillips.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told ABC (US) that there was going to be a lot of companies interested, especially those who are not Russian or Chinese.

“Our refineries in the Gulf Coast of the United States are the best in terms of refining this heavy crude,” Mr Rubio said.

“There’s actually been a shortage of heavy crude around the world. So I think there would be tremendous demand and interest from private industry if given the space to do it, if given the opportunity to do it.”