{"id":420598,"date":"2026-01-09T10:13:01","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T09:13:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=420598"},"modified":"2026-01-10T02:51:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T01:51:08","slug":"trumps-venezuelan-gambit-and-the-reordering-of-global-oil-geopolitics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=420598","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s Venezuelan Gambit and the Reordering of Global Oil Geopolitics"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In early January 2026, President Donald Trump authorized a daring U.S. military operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, framing it as an arrest on narcoterrorism charges.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This action, dubbed by analysts as Trump’s “Venezuelan gambit,” has thrust the oil-rich nation into the spotlight, with Trump openly declaring intentions to temporarily “run” Venezuela and harness its vast petroleum resources for American benefit.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

_____________________________________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Tilak\u00b4s Substack<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Tilak Doshi<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In the pre-dawn hours of January 3rd, 2026, US special forces executed an audacious raid on Venezuelan military installations, capturing President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, and whisking them aboard the USS Iwo Jima for trial in New York on narcotics-terrorism charges. This swift operation, detailed in President Trump\u2019s subsequent\u00a0press conference<\/a>, was no mere act of retribution against a narco-state regime. It marked the bold application of what the administration calls the \u201cTrump Corollary\u201d to the Monroe Doctrine, a policy pivot outlined in the November 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump\u2019s removal and capture of Nicol\u00e1s Maduro and the de facto<\/em> US takeover of Venezuela\u2019s oil future mark a decisive reordering of the global petroleum chessboard, tilting power toward non\u2011OPEC producers in the Americas and sharply curbing the room China and Russia once had to use Venezuela as a strategic beachhead in the Western Hemisphere. This is not only a regime change; it is an energy\u2011security doctrine in action, with the Monroe Doctrine now explicitly applied to pipelines, refineries and heavy\u2011oil upgraders as much as to naval squadrons and missile bases.\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From open door to expropriation<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a century, Venezuela\u2019s ascent as an oil power<\/a> was inseparable from US capital, technology and markets. By the late 1920s, American majors such as Standard Oil (the ancestor of ExxonMobil) and Gulf had turned what was once an agricultural exporter into one of the world\u2019s leading crude suppliers, with over a hundred foreign oil companies operating in the country by 1929. The 1943 Hydrocarbons Law, which introduced a 50\u201150 profit split, was emblematic of a broadly cooperative investment environment that relied on foreign capital investment, foreign engineering talent and US refineries on the Gulf Coast.\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nationalisation in 1976 created PDVSA, the national oil company, but did not initially sever these ties. PDVSA\u2019s technocratic leadership ran the company as a quasi\u2011independent commercial entity, continued joint ventures and preserved high operating standards, which underpinned production of well over three million barrels per day during the late 1980s and 1990s. The deeper rupture came with Hugo Ch\u00e1vez\u2019s politicisation of PDVSA. Mass firings of experienced engineers after the 2002-03 strike, punitive fiscal changes and expropriations drove out firms such as ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips and triggered a slow\u2011motion collapse of investment, productivity and institutional competence.\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ch\u00e1vez\u2019s \u2018Bolivarian Revolution\u2019 transformed PDVSA from an oil company into a political instrument. Following the 2002-03 strike, more than 18,000 experienced PDVSA staff \u2014 engineers, geologists, project managers \u2014 were purged and replaced with loyalists. Technical competence gave way to ideological conformity. PDVSA\u2019s expert staff migrated to Houston, Calgary, Dhahran (Saudi Aramco\u2019s headquarters) and other oil centres around the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The China-Russia detour that failed<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Washington-Caracas relations deteriorated under Ch\u00e1vez and Maduro, Venezuela turned to Beijing and Moscow<\/a> as creditors of last resort, bartering its future oil output against loans and political protection. Between 2010 and 2013, Venezuela absorbed roughly two\u2011thirds of all new Chinese policy\u2011bank credit to Latin America, much of it structured as oil\u2011backed lending that tied PDVSA to long\u2011term discounted-price heavy crude oil deliveries to Chinese entities. Russian state giant Rosneft stepped in as Western sanctions tightened, advancing about $6.5 billion to PDVSA in prepayments, taking almost half of Citgo\u2019s shares as collateral and expanding its stakes in Orinoco Belt ventures and Venezuelan gas fields.\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet this axis never produced a genuine recovery of the Venezuelan oil sector. Chinese and Russian capital was poured into a structurally mismanaged company starved of maintenance, where chronic under\u2011investment, graft and technical decay overwhelmed any injections of capital. As production slid from almost 3.5-4 million barrels per day in the late 1990s to well under one million barrels per day by the late 2010s, even China began to unwind its exposure, imposing a debt moratorium in 2016 and shifting from fresh sovereign loans to more cautious joint\u2011venture financing.\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Line<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Trump\u2019s Monroe Doctrine for Oil<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump\u2019s new National Security Strategy<\/a> explicitly revives the Monroe Doctrine as an \u201cenergy dominance\u201d strategy, pledging to \u201creassert and enforce\u201d US pre\u2011eminence in the Western Hemisphere and to deny extra\u2011regional powers the ability to own or control strategically vital assets in the Americas. The seizure of Maduro \u2014 legally framed through earlier US narco\u2011terrorism indictments<\/a> and the State Department\u2019s designation of the \u2018Cartel de los Soles<\/em>\u2018 network as a terrorist organisation \u2014 provided the trigger to apply this doctrine in its most muscular form.\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his post\u2011operation remarks, Trump was typically blunt: US \u201cbiggest anywhere in the world\u201d oil companies will be invited to \u201cspend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure\u2026 and start making money for the country\u201d, signalling that Washington intends to set the rules for production, refining and export from the world\u2019s largest proven oil reserves. Chevron never fully left Venezuela despite the Ch\u00e1vez-Maduro era and now sits in pole position, while former investors such as ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips \u2014 victims of earlier expropriations \u2014 are obvious candidates for a return under US protection<\/a>.\u200b\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Non\u2011OPEC Americas versus OPEC+<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Control over Venezuela\u2019s 300 billion barrels of proven reserves<\/a> \u2014 the largest in the world and valued at a notional $17 trillion at current crude oil prices \u2014 effectively folds an OPEC founding member into a US\u2011led hemispheric oil bloc anchored in shale, Canadian oil sands and Gulf of Mexico production. Even allowing for heavy\u2011oil complexity and degraded infrastructure, a medium\u2011term ramp\u2011up from today\u2019s sub\u2011million\u2011barrel output toward two to three million barrels per day over the next five to seven years would reconfigure global supply dynamics just as OPEC+ struggles with internal cohesion and sanctions on Russia and Iran.\u200b\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This shift strengthens non\u2011OPEC producers in three ways. First, it widens the slate of secure, politically aligned supplies available to Atlantic Basin refiners, diluting OPEC\u2019s leverage over marginal barrels and price spikes. Second, it creates a de facto<\/em> pricing axis running from the Permian Basin through Alberta and the Orinoco Belt, with the United States at the regulatory and logistical centre, able to influence quality\u2011specific benchmarks for heavy sour crudes that were once the preserve of OPEC exporters. Third, by aligning Venezuelan output with US export infrastructure and Gulf Coast refiners, it undercuts the room for Moscow and Riyadh to use coordinated cuts under the OPEC+ umbrella to discipline markets without confronting a disciplined counter\u2011bloc of flexible non\u2011OPEC supply.\u200b\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Canada, Alberta, China, Russia and hemispheric gravity<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The US Monroe Doctrine for oil also reshapes intra\u2011American bargaining, particularly with Canada. Alberta\u2019s oil sands have long supplied heavy crude to US Gulf Coast refineries tailored to process such grades, giving Ottawa leverage in wrangling over pipelines, tariffs and climate conditions attached to export routes. Trump\u2019s effective control over future Venezuelan heavy crude weakens that bargaining position: if Venezuelan heavy barrels can be restored and shipped reliably, Washington has a substitute for Alberta\u2019s flows, dramatically changing the tone of any dispute over new lines to the Pacific Coast for Asian markets.\u200b\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alberta\u2019s political leadership, already wary of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney\u2019s federal Net Zero\u2011driven constraints, will see in Venezuela\u2019s reintegration into a US\u2011centric energy sphere a reminder that geography and refinery configuration tie the province more closely to Houston than to Ottawa\u2019s green technocracy. The more Ottawa doubles down on carbon\u2011pricing and regulatory hurdles, the stronger the gravitational pull of a continental strategy in which American, Canadian and now Venezuelan heavy crudes are optimised across a single integrated system of pipelines, refineries and export terminals.\u200b The Canadian state has been exploring ways to assert greater autonomy without necessarily leaving Canada, as well as more radical discussions around full separation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Beijing, the implications are stark. Chinese policy banks<\/a> extended tens of billions of dollars to Venezuela in oil\u2011backed loans, and Chinese companies entered joint ventures precisely to secure long\u2011term access to heavy crude outside US influence. With Washington now setting the legal and security framework in Caracas, those \u2018secure\u2019 flows are subject to the constraints of a doctrine that explicitly seeks to deny non\u2011hemispheric competitors\u2019 control over strategic assets, forcing China into a defensive posture where it must renegotiate, accept less favourable terms or watch sunk capital stranded.\u200b\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moscow faces a similar reversal. Rosneft\u2019s role as financial lifeline to Maduro<\/a> and its collateral stake in Citgo were designed to lock in leverage precisely where US refineries and markets were most exposed. Now, the very collateral that secured Russian prepayments becomes vulnerable to US courts and regulators, while future Venezuelan barrels are increasingly likely to flow under contracts that support the petrodollar system rather than Russia\u2019s rouble\u2011 or yuan\u2011denominated experiments. In one stroke, Washington has turned a potential Eurasian energy outpost in the Americas into a platform for pushing back against the BRICS energy realignment centred on Russian pipelines and Chinese credit.\u200b\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Energy realism and US security<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seen through the lens of Trump\u2019s wider security doctrine, the Venezuelan operation is not an isolated adventure but a logical extension of a broader turn from \u2018global policeman\u2019 to hemispheric energy powerhouse. By aligning the Western Hemisphere\u2019s vast fossil\u2011fuel resources \u2014 US shale, Canadian oil sands, Brazilian pre\u2011salt, Guyana\u2019s newfound reserves and now Venezuelan heavy crude \u2014 under a framework that privileges reliable, low\u2011cost supply over Net Zero symbolism, Washington reduces its exposure to Eurasian pipeline politics and Middle Eastern instability.\u200b\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The upshot is a world in which petro\u2011power is less about OPEC quotas and communiqu\u00e9s and more about which bloc can combine geological abundance, technological prowess and political coherence. On that score, a US\u2011anchored Americas, enhanced by a revitalised Venezuela, looks considerably more robust than an ideological Net Zero-constrained Europe or a Sino\u2011Russian Eurasian axis entangled in over\u2011leveraged, under\u2011performing bets in failing petro\u2011states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump\u2019s capture of Maduro thus does more than resolve a long\u2011running alleged narco\u2011terrorism case. It upends the prevailing assumptions of the international oil industry, strengthens non\u2011OPEC producers across the Americas and reasserts US national security not as an abstract project but as a concrete, energy\u2011realist strategy \u2014 at substantial cost to the ambitions of China and Russia in Latin America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Devil\u2019s Excrement or a Positive\u2011Sum Game for Venezuelans<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Critics will denounce Trump\u2019s move as neo\u2011imperialism in oilman\u2019s clothing. Yet such rhetoric ignores the human and economic catastrophe presided over by Ch\u00e1vez and Maduro: an economy in free fall, hyperinflation measured in millions of percent<\/a> and a mass exodus of millions of Venezuelans fleeing shortages and collapsing public services. PDVSA\u2019s hollowing\u2011out \u2014 engineers fired for political reasons, maintenance deferred, corruption entrenched \u2014 turned the world\u2019s richest oil endowment into a miserable tale of resource nationalism divorced from competence.\u200b Resuscitating the country\u2019s oil production and reforming its state-controlled company, PDVSA, will take years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A restored partnership with US firms, if anchored in transparent contracts and a credible constitutional transition led by a genuine elected alternative, offers something social\u2011engineering \u2018Bolivarianism\u2019 never delivered: sustained investment, real jobs and hard\u2011currency revenues that can fund infrastructure, health and education rather than kleptocratic patronage and Cuban intelligence networks. For ordinary Venezuelans, the alternative is not some poorly thought-out autarky but the continuation of a failed experiment in politicised oil that already destroyed their living standards; the realistic choice is between remaining a failed state or becoming again a central pillar of a hemispheric energy\u2011security architecture.\u200b\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Juan Pablo P\u00e9rez Alfonzo, a prominent Venezuelan politician and a co-founder of OPEC, famously described oil as \u201cthe devil\u2019s excrement<\/a>\u201d in 1975, a prophetic warning about the dangers of over-reliance on natural resources. While oil brought Venezuela immense wealth, he predicted that it would ultimately lead to ruin, waste, corruption and a decline in other sectors like agriculture: \u201cTrouble \u2014 waste, corruption, consumption, our public services falling apart. And debt. Debt we shall have for years.\u201d The \u2018resource curse\u2019 or the \u2018Dutch Disease\u2019 are terms now widely used to explain why many resource-rich countries, unlike nations with more diversified economies and competent policymakers (such as Norway), often fail to achieve sustained prosperity and strong institutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If competently prosecuted, President Trump\u2019s Venezuela gambit \u2013 an illegal attack on a sovereign nation under international law though characterised<\/a> by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio as a \u201claw enforcement\u201d action aimed at addressing \u201cnarco-terrorism\u201d \u2013 presents the potential, at last, to turn Venezuela\u2019s oil from a curse on its people back into a blessing.\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article was first published in the Daily Sceptic https:\/\/dailysceptic.org\/2026\/01\/07\/trumps-venezuelan-gambit-and-the-reordering-of-global-oil-geopolitics\/<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr Tilak K. Doshi is the <\/em>Daily Sceptic\u2018s Energy Editor. He is an economist, a member of the CO2<\/sub> Coalition and a former contributor to <\/em>Forbes. Follow him on Substack<\/a> and X<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In early January 2026, President Donald Trump authorized a daring U.S. military operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, framing it as an arrest on narcoterrorism charges.<\/p>\n

This action, dubbed by analysts as Trump’s “Venezuelan gambit,” has thrust the oil-rich nation into the spotlight, with Trump openly declaring intentions to temporarily “run” Venezuela and harness its vast petroleum resources for American benefit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJ0eHQiOiJUcnVtcFx1MjAxOXMgVmVuZXp1ZWxhbiBHYW1iaXQgYW5kIHRoZSBSZW9yZGVyaW5nIG9mIEdsb2JhbCBPaWwgR2VvcG9saXRpY3MiLCJ0ZW1wbGF0ZSI6ImhpZ2h3YXkiLCJmb250IjoiIiwiYmxvZ19pZCI6MTU1ODEyNDQ5fQ.PT1I3TdUzMIbDKXkfDS8zMa_1NnWcHz_lYQvmQL95fQMQ"},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691840608,691840610,691828869,691840606,691840604,691840607,691840609,691840611,691833487,691840605],"class_list":["post-420598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bolivarian-revolution","tag-crude-oil-prices","tag-energy-realism","tag-hugo-chavez","tag-national-security-strategy-nss","tag-pdvsa","tag-president-nicolas-maduro","tag-social-engineering-bolivarianism","tag-us-president-donald-j-trump","tag-venezuelas-petroleum-industry","has-post-thumbnail","fallback-thumbnail"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1LpQ","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":421428,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=421428","url_meta":{"origin":420598,"position":0},"title":"Energy Security: Trump Bluntly Admits Why Venezuelan Action Was Needed","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"01\/15\/2026","format":false,"excerpt":"The calendar had just barely heralded the new year when President Donald J. Trump got 2026 off to a rollicking start with the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife.","rel":"","context":"In \"Energy Dominance\"","block_context":{"text":"Energy Dominance","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=energy-dominance"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/AQMFvK6J38vGZ2FN6jIfAYUrUZsqbLZuTaO_6GqR8uV7hhwsL5VHtKncNm_lSQ_x87ubypWFoBU1whROXuL_MnG8HUpQB8YO1UwZVr73tql1koHly0k_yVxhiqFLNqg.jpeg?fit=1200%2C658&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/AQMFvK6J38vGZ2FN6jIfAYUrUZsqbLZuTaO_6GqR8uV7hhwsL5VHtKncNm_lSQ_x87ubypWFoBU1whROXuL_MnG8HUpQB8YO1UwZVr73tql1koHly0k_yVxhiqFLNqg.jpeg?fit=1200%2C658&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/AQMFvK6J38vGZ2FN6jIfAYUrUZsqbLZuTaO_6GqR8uV7hhwsL5VHtKncNm_lSQ_x87ubypWFoBU1whROXuL_MnG8HUpQB8YO1UwZVr73tql1koHly0k_yVxhiqFLNqg.jpeg?fit=1200%2C658&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/AQMFvK6J38vGZ2FN6jIfAYUrUZsqbLZuTaO_6GqR8uV7hhwsL5VHtKncNm_lSQ_x87ubypWFoBU1whROXuL_MnG8HUpQB8YO1UwZVr73tql1koHly0k_yVxhiqFLNqg.jpeg?fit=1200%2C658&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/AQMFvK6J38vGZ2FN6jIfAYUrUZsqbLZuTaO_6GqR8uV7hhwsL5VHtKncNm_lSQ_x87ubypWFoBU1whROXuL_MnG8HUpQB8YO1UwZVr73tql1koHly0k_yVxhiqFLNqg.jpeg?fit=1200%2C658&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":420902,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=420902","url_meta":{"origin":420598,"position":1},"title":"How One Arrest Could Refill the Strategic Oil Reserves Biden Drained","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"01\/11\/2026","format":false,"excerpt":"The Trump administration\u2019s capture of socialist Venezuelan dictator Nicol\u00e1s Maduro has thrown the region into uncertainty while presenting opportunities that could give the U.S. a geopolitical and economic advantage.","rel":"","context":"In \"Nicol\u00e1s Maduro\"","block_context":{"text":"Nicol\u00e1s Maduro","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=nicolas-maduro"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/AQM1LwVCdTWsBCNLj2Ms9age1TphWeFUNnWCIkBxoyj9uB9gWwGNexkGpT3JlxI9UJGHakwggKCsJVOY1_kzJDvzmLlKYzaEgfKFqjPPCnn6CYovfA-YxTED0TaI2rZf.jpeg?fit=1200%2C686&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/AQM1LwVCdTWsBCNLj2Ms9age1TphWeFUNnWCIkBxoyj9uB9gWwGNexkGpT3JlxI9UJGHakwggKCsJVOY1_kzJDvzmLlKYzaEgfKFqjPPCnn6CYovfA-YxTED0TaI2rZf.jpeg?fit=1200%2C686&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/AQM1LwVCdTWsBCNLj2Ms9age1TphWeFUNnWCIkBxoyj9uB9gWwGNexkGpT3JlxI9UJGHakwggKCsJVOY1_kzJDvzmLlKYzaEgfKFqjPPCnn6CYovfA-YxTED0TaI2rZf.jpeg?fit=1200%2C686&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/AQM1LwVCdTWsBCNLj2Ms9age1TphWeFUNnWCIkBxoyj9uB9gWwGNexkGpT3JlxI9UJGHakwggKCsJVOY1_kzJDvzmLlKYzaEgfKFqjPPCnn6CYovfA-YxTED0TaI2rZf.jpeg?fit=1200%2C686&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/AQM1LwVCdTWsBCNLj2Ms9age1TphWeFUNnWCIkBxoyj9uB9gWwGNexkGpT3JlxI9UJGHakwggKCsJVOY1_kzJDvzmLlKYzaEgfKFqjPPCnn6CYovfA-YxTED0TaI2rZf.jpeg?fit=1200%2C686&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":422076,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=422076","url_meta":{"origin":420598,"position":2},"title":"Europe\u2019s Outrage Over Maduro Arrest Reflects Poor Understanding of Oil Industry","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"01\/19\/2026","format":false,"excerpt":"The dramatic arrest of Venezuelan leader Nicol\u00e1s Maduro sent shock waves around the world. 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