President Donald Trump said that American oil companies were prepared to tackle the difficult task of entering Venezuela and investing to restore production in the South American country, an announcement that came just hours after Nicolás Maduro was captured and removed by U.S. forces.
"We’re going to have our very large U.S. 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," Trump said on Saturday.
Chevron is the only American major currently operating in Venezuela’s oil fields that produce heavy crude used by U.S. Gulf Coast and other refineries. Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips, among others, had storied histories in the country after their projects were nationalized nearly two decades ago by former President Hugo Chavez. The American Petroleum Institute, the largest U.S. oil trade group, said on Saturday it was monitoring the emerging situation.
Francisco Monaldi, director of the Latin America Energy Program at Rice University’s Baker Institute in Houston, said that Chevron is immediately positioned to benefit the most from any potential oil opening in Venezuela. Still, he said that other U.S. oil companies will be paying close attention to political stability and wait to see how the operational environment and contract framework unfold.
"The company that probably will be very interested in going back is Conoco, because they are owed more than $10 billion, and it’s unlikely that they will get paid without going back into the country," he said. Exxon could also return, but is not owed as much money, he added.
BRITAIN will “shed no tears” after America’s strike on Venezuela this morning, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has said.
Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, 63, was captured and will face a criminal trial in the US after he was seized in aUS-led special forces operationin the early hours.
Now, Sir Keir has backed transition in Venezuela after Donald Trump announced America would “run” the country until a “safe” transfer of power.
The UK Government will discuss the “evolving situation” with US counterparts over the coming days and will “shed no tears” about the end of Nicolas Maduro’s regime, the PM said.
In a statement on Sunday evening, Sir Keir said: “The UK has long supported a transition of power in Venezuela.
“We regarded Maduro as an illegitimate president and we shed no tears about the end of his regime.
“I reiterated my support for international law this morning.
“The UK Government will discuss the evolving situation with US counterparts in the days ahead as we seek a safe and peaceful transition to a legitimate government that reflects the will of the Venezuelan people.”
Maduro, 63, was pictured aboard the USS Iwo Jima – a huge aircraft carrier stationed in the Caribbean – as he was shipped off to New York.
The captured leader was seen wearing ear defenders and a thick black blindfold with a bottle of water in his hands. He was bizarrely in a grey Nike tracksuit.
Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores were reportedly captured by Delta Force, the US military’s elite special mission unit, in the early hours of Saturday morning.
His exfiltration was part of a special military operation supported by large-scale air strikes.
The pair were reportedly dragged from their bedroom from inside a fortified military compound while Black Hawk helicopters pounded Caracas.
Both have been hit with narco-terrorism and weapons-related charges.
Trump has consistently framed Venezuela under Maduro as an illegitimate regime, accusing it of operating as a narco-state aligned with US adversaries.
President Madurodeclared a state of emergency when the bombs first started to drop.
He went on to accuse the Trump administration of attacking civilian and military sites.
A series of huge explosions rang out in Caracas this morning as low-flying planes and helicopters were spotted buzzing the city by witnesses.
Columns of smoke and flames could be seen in videos recorded at the scene.
At least seven explosions were reported in a matter of minutes of the strike starting.
French President Emmanuel Macron declared that the Venezuelan people were "freed from the dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro," following reports of Maduro's removal from power.
Macron emphasized that the transition must be peaceful and democratic, backing President-elect Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia to lead the nation forward.
In a post on X, Macron accused Maduro of having "confiscated power" and violating fundamental freedoms, calling it a grave affront to the dignity of Venezuelans. He said France was closely coordinating with regional partners and remained alert.
United States President Donald Trump said on Saturday that large American companies will go into Venezuela following Washington'scaptureof the South American country's President Nicolas Maduro in order to "fix the badly broken" oil infrastructure.
Trump claimed that the oil business in Venezuela has been " bust for a long time" and that the country has not used its resources as it could have. He alleged that US companies will "spend billions of dollars" on infrastructure and "start earning money" for Venezuela, which has the largest oil reserves in the world.
The US president also stated that his administration was prepared to stage a second attack on the Latin American country if needed, but noted it likely will not be necessary as the first one seems to have been a "success."
Surging liquefied natural gas exports from new North American export plants likely pushed global LNG shipments in 2025 by the most since 2022, Kpler data showed on Tuesday.
The annual rise in 2025 would be the steepest increase in global LNG exports since 2022, when shipments grew by 4.5% compared to 2021, the data showed.
North America was the key supplier of new LNG volumes, as Canada’s first-ever export facility, LNG Canada, started shipments in the middle of 2025, and Plaquemines LNG in Louisiana launched operations and ramped up shipments throughout the year.
Thanks to rising capacity and volumes, the U.S. is set to become the first LNG exporter in the world to have passed in 2025 the threshold of 100 million tons of LNG exports in one year.
Additional LNG supply is poised to hit the market between 2026 and 2030 as more U.S. export plants come online and Qatar begins shipments from its huge capacity expansion of the North Field export facilities.
The U.S. is set to export 14.9 billion cubic feet per day of LNG in 2025, up by 25% from 2024, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in its latest Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO) for December. With new projects ramping up, the EIA expects U.S. LNG exports to jump to an average of 16.3 billion cubic feet per day in 2026.
Despite warnings of a near-term global LNG glut, top exporters in the Middle East, including Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), see strong demand going forward and flag insufficient investment in supply in the medium to long term.
The UAE is growing its LNG exports to meet surging global demand that will outpace investment in supply, Energy Minister Suhail al Mazrouei told Reuters earlier in December.
“I agree with his excellency, Minister of Qatar, that the demand is going to be much, much more than the projects that we are seeing,” the UAE official added.
Earlier this month, Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, QatarEnergy’s CEO and the Minister of State for Energy Affairs of Qatar, said that global LNG demand will grow, led by increased power needs from AI-related data centers.
Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro was captured alongside his wife by US forces during a high-stakes military operation Saturday morning, leaving the South American country in a constitutional crisis.
Venezuela’s Vice President Delcy Rodriguez has also fled to Russia. Meanwhile, Maduro’s son Nicholas Ernesto Maduro Guerra, who’s known as “The Prince,” is being charged alongside his parents for the illegal trafficking of thousands of tons of cocaine.
Venezuelan dictator seen in handcuffs in first picture aboard USS Iwo Jima to NYC for indictment
The first photo of deposed Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro was released by President Donald Trump.
Maduro appeared blindfolded, wearing soundproof headphones, handcuffed, clasping a plastic bottle of water, wearing a Nike sweatsuit and standing aboard the US Navy’s Iwo Jima on his way to New York where he will be prosecuted on narco-terrorism charges.
Maduro appeared blindfolded, wearing soundproof headphones, handcuffed, clasping a plastic bottle of water, wearing a Nike sweatsuit and standing aboard the US Navy’s Iwo Jima on his way to New York where he will be prosecuted on narco-terrorism charges.Donald Trump/ Truth Social
One mostly cropped-out law enforcement officer stands next to Maduro on the ship, appearing to hold his arm.
The image was shared by President Trump on his platform Truth Social amidst several online fake arrest photos going viral.
Not pictured was Maduro’s wife, Cilia Flores, who was also arrested and charged in the narco-terrorism scheme and is also being extradited to the Southern District of New York to face justice.
Government whistleblowers who reported widespread fraud in Minnesota were retaliated against on the job by having their vacations and promotions denied — and their every keystroke at work monitored, The Post has learned.
Rep. Kristin Robbins, a Republican who chairs the state’s Fraud Prevention and State Oversight committee, told The Post that whistleblowers who have come forward to report fraud to her committee and to their agencies claimed to be “electronically surveilled” after news stories about the Somali daycare center scams went viral.
“The group of whistleblowers that I interact with claim that they’ve been denied vacations, promotions, and that it’s hurt their careers,” said Robbins, who is running for governor against the incumbent and former Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz.
Fraud Prevention and State Oversight Rep. Kristin Robbins told to The Post that whistleblowers claim to have been electronically surveilled while on the job at their state agencies.AP
“As recently as a couple of weeks ago they told me that every time [fraud] flares up [in the news] they can tell — two of them their job is in the IT world — can tell that they’re being surveilled on the computers in the department’s chat function for words like ‘fraud’ or ‘reporting’ and there’s sort of a chilling effect of knowing that they are looking for people who are talking about fraud,” Robbins said.
These whistleblowers are reporting instances of fraud in the health services industry, including child daycares, adult daycare centers, and autism centers, according to Robbins.
The gubernatorial hopeful revealed the group of whistleblowers she interacts with goes to extreme lengths to maintain their anonymity.
“It’s a really large group,” Robbins said. “When I meet with them it’s electronic and they’re all behind a screen and they have one person who is unidentified who then relays questions to the group.”
She added: “When they call, it’s a blocked number. I just know to pick up when it’s a blocked number now. They’re very protective of themselves.”
The group has good reason to be protective, with two high profile whistleblowers previously facing repercussions for reporting fraud.
Whistleblowers are reporting alleged instances of fraud in the health services industry, including child daycares, adult daycare centers, and autism centers.AP
Faye Bernstein, then a compliance officer at the Department of Human Services, claimed supervisors excluded her from meetings, told her to seek therapy, and eventually fired her after she reported fraud back in 2019, Fox9 reported.
Though her career was cratered, Bernstein was able to help uncover $29 million in unauthorized payments to two Native American tribes — the names of which were not known by DHS.
Another Minnesota DHS whistleblower, Scott Stillman, reported that daycare operations were rife with fraud and that scams were widespread back in 2018, MPR News reported.
The internal investigator resigned his position after his warnings received pushback from bosses in the department, he claimed to the outlet.
Robbins’ Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight committee will hold a hearing next week to investigate the massive billion-dollar ongoing fraud scandal plaguing the Land of 10,000 Lakes.
