← Videos · Energy & Permitting

Secretary Wright Says First Venezuelan Oil Sale Brought $500 Million, with Several Billion Expected This Year

January 21, 2026 · U.S. Department of Energy · 0:07:42

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

On Fox Business, host Maria Bartiromo asked Energy Secretary Chris Wright about prices coming down. Wright said average gasoline prices are well below $3 and that this might be the first year they average below $3 in quite some time; that oil supply continues to grow and oil prices have trended down; and that the administration is making it easier to refine oil in the United States, as he stated it. He said the President was elected to drive down gasoline, heating and electricity prices — electricity being the bigger challenge — and that the huge rises under President Biden will soon come to a stop, according to his remarks. Asked whether sub-$60 or $50 oil would cause companies to pull back long-term investment, he said American oil and gas companies have been tremendous innovators in the shale revolution, that low prices strain profitability but also drive innovation and efficiency, and that break-even prices will keep coming down, as he stated it.

On Venezuela, Wright walked through the first sale of sanctioned oil after, as Bartiromo put it, the extraction of Maduro: he corrected the figure to say the first delivery of cash was $500 million, with several billion dollars expected this year — north of $5 billion, as he stated it. He said the prior system was a quasi-criminal enterprise in which some revenue went to the government, some was siphoned off by gangsters or drug gangs, and oil was sold at a huge discount, with China buying at $30 below Brent, while Venezuela imported Iranian and Russian crude and hosted Hezbollah, according to his remarks. He said the oil is now all marketed by the United States government at market prices, with money put quickly into accounts in the name of PDVSA and funneled to Venezuela, growing the government’s revenues while giving the United States significant influence to end the criminality and displace adversaries — benefiting the U.S. through lower energy prices and reduced exports of drugs, guns and crime, as he stated it.

Why it matters

Wright’s figures for the Venezuela oil program — a $500 million first payment and several billion expected in 2026, as he stated them — are the administration’s earliest public revenue benchmarks for the arrangement.

Sources: U.S. Department of Energy, “Secretary Wright Joins Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business - January 21, 2026”, 2026-01-21 (official upload, embedded above; published 2026-01-21). Transcript via Supadata (private research store, paraphrased and attributed, not republished). All figures and characterizations as stated by the speakers.