Maduro asks oil-producing bloc to help protect Venezuela’s oil reserves from US ‘aggression’.Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has called on the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to help his country counter “growing and illegal threats” from the United States and its president, Donald Trump.In a letter to fellow members of the bloc of major oil-producing countries on Sunday, Maduro accused the US of trying to “seize” Venezuela’s oil reserves, the world’s largest.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list“I hope to count on your best efforts to help stop this aggression, which is growing stronger and seriously threatens the balance of the international energy market, both for producing and consuming countries,” Maduro said, according to a copy of the letter published by state broadcaster TeleSUR.Maduro also “formally denounced” the “use of lethal military force against the country’s territory, people and institutions”, both to OPEC and the larger group of OPEC+ countries.While Venezuela holds the world’s largest proven oil reserves, estimated at 303 billion barrels as of 2023, it exported just $4.05bn worth of crude oil in 2023, far below other major-oil producing countries, in part due to US sanctions imposed during the first Trump presidency.Along with Iran, Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, the Latin American country was a founding member of OPEC in 1960, with its members cooperating to control oil supply and influence the price of oil in the decades that followed. Military buildupMaduro’s letter comes a day after Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform that Venezuela’s airspace was closed, without explaining further. Advertisement “To all Airlines …
