Venezuela and Its Oil

January 15, 2026

This week we talked about Venezuela. Earlier this month, the U.S. captured Venezuela's president, Nicolás Maduro, and brought him to the U.S. to face charges. A lot of you were really interested in it, so we went over the background, had a big discussion, and finished with a speech activity.

At the time, it was unclear how much control the U.S. had over Venezuela's government, but it did have a lot of influence over Venezuela's oil. So that's what we focused on.

Venezuela's oil

Oil comes in different types:

Heavy oil is thick. Light oil flows more easily.
Sour oil has more sulfur. Sweet oil has less.

Venezuela's oil is mostly heavy and sour. That isn't ideal, because it needs a lot more refining than lighter, sweeter oil like the oil produced in Texas.

What could happen

Lower prices: if Venezuela produces more oil under U.S. influence, it could add a lot more oil to the world market and push prices down. Oil is part of almost every industry, so that could keep prices down in a lot of other areas too.
Replacing Canadian oil: many refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast are built to handle heavy, sour oil, but most of the oil the U.S. produces itself is light and sweet. So the U.S. imports heavy oil, much of it from Canada. Venezuelan oil is similar, so it could replace some of those imports.

Why it won't happen overnight

Venezuela's oil infrastructure is in bad shape, so it would take years to ramp up production in a meaningful way.
Venezuelan oil is expensive to get out of the ground, and there are a lot of inefficiencies to fix.

How Venezuela got here

Hugo Chávez used oil money to help Venezuela grow, but his government spent far more than it could afford, and the country became extremely dependent on oil. Once the oil industry started falling apart, it was very hard to come back.

Takeaway

When the news first came out, there were a lot of different takes, and the idea that oil would just start flowing missed the reality of the situation. Don't just believe what you see or hear right away. Apply your own logic.

Speech activity

We finished by practicing speeches on the fly. Everyone had 30 seconds to write down a few bullet points, then 30 seconds to speak.