Trump Visits Tanker Angerona, Announces Crude Oil Deal with Venezuela

U.S. President Donald Trump visited on Tuesday the tanker Angerona, operated by trading house Trafigura, berthed at a general cargo terminal in Corpus Christi, Texas. The vessel carried the first shipment of Venezuelan crude under the new supply agreement between Washington and oil company NABEP, and Trump used it as a backdrop to celebrate what he called 'the greatest oil victory in history,' promising 'billions' of barrels from Venezuela to come.

The Angerona is an Aframax tanker flagged in the Marshall Islands, built in 2008 and operated by Trafigura, one of the two firms initially designated to lead the U.S. program for marketing Venezuelan crude. According to AIS data cited by Maritime Executive, the vessel had last called at Venezuela four months earlier and has since operated in the Atlantic, the Mediterranean and the Caribbean; in Corpus Christi, vessels of this size can also be used for ship-to-ship transfers of crude to or from a larger vessel anchored offshore.

Venezuelan oil company NABEP confirmed it supplied one million barrels of crude as part of the agreement, which will be sold by the U.S. government to refineries operated by Exxon Mobil and by Venezuela's Citgo Petroleum, according to a White House official cited by Reuters. The deal, reached after the capture and removal of former president Nicolás Maduro by U.S. forces in January, grants Washington a 35% stake in NABEP's parent company and access to discounted crude, in addition to having handed the company 14 additional oil fields on top of the three it already controlled, without a competitive bidding process.

Trump stated that the oil from the Angerona was delivered 'at zero cost to the American taxpayer' and called it a 'gift,' while also raising the possibility of making Venezuela the '51st state' of the United States. A White House official maintained that the government received the shipment 'at no cost,' while a NABEP statement first described the shipment as part of Washington's right to purchase 20% of production at cost with no markup, and was later amended to note that the shipment arrived at no cost 'in recognition of the historic nature of the agreement.' Maritime Executive also noted that a separate, more permanent agreement reached in August with Venezuelan businessman Alejandro Betancourt does not provide for free oil but rather access at a steep discount: according to a contract obtained by ProPublica, Washington will be able to purchase up to one-fifth of the partnership's production at $30 per barrel, 75% below prevailing prices.

According to NABEP, the 17 fields it controls in Venezuela hold estimated reserves of 65 billion barrels, and the company's total output reached 223,509 barrels of oil equivalent per day as of October 19, up from about 18,000 barrels per day two years ago; the Petrozamora project, the company's largest, reached 115,000 barrels per day. NABEP's chief executive, Alejandro Betancourt, said this first shipment 'will be followed by thousands of similar arrivals' and that the cargo reached Texas in just over a week, compared with more than a month for crude coming from the Middle East.

The episode gives Trump the opportunity to highlight access to cheaper crude as evidence of the economic benefits of his policies ahead of the midterm elections. During the event, the president praised oilman Harold Hamm, who was present, calling him 'the greatest independent oilman in the world.'