Former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro smiles and flashes a peace sign in a photograph. (Photo: @NicolasMaduro)
President Donald Trump said on Friday that the United States had secured majority control of more than 65 billion barrels of Venezuela’s proven oil reserves through a partnership with private business. Rodríguez subsequently said the bilateral energy project would run for 25 years and involve 17 strategic oilfields, with an initial production target of more than 1.5 million barrels a day, news agency Reuters reported. The stockpile held about 290 million barrels on August 21, near its lowest level in 44 years.
“I send these photos as a small gift to all my grandsons and granddaughters, to the boys and girls, and to all the noble people who love us,” Maduro said in an English rendering of his Spanish-language message. He said he and his wife, Cilia Flores, would “remain strong, serene, and confident” and added: “Venezuela will be reborn. Maduro also described the support reaching the couple as “that love that reaches us transformed into prayer, into constant action, into solidarity and true support. ” Maduro’s message emerged as the government led by acting President Delcy Rodríguez moves into a new phase of relations with Washington, particularly over Venezuela’s vast oil reserves. His lawyer, Barry Pollack, has said he will seek dismissal on the ground that Maduro is immune from prosecution as the head of a sovereign state.
Pollack has also previously indicated that the defence may challenge the legality of Maduro’s capture. Two photographs posted to Nicolás Maduro’s official social-media accounts on Sunday appear to show the former Venezuelan president smiling and making peace signs at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, nearly eight months after US forces captured him in Caracas. Trump said on Sunday that Venezuelan crude obtained through the arrangement would also be used to replenish the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve.