MBABANE:Nicolas Maduro,the Venezuelan President, has called on OPEC to assist his country in countering what he described as “growing and illegal threats from the United States(US) and it’s President Donald Trump, Aljazeera reported on Monday morning.
OPEC is an abbreviation for the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, an organization enabling the co-operation of leading oil-producing and oil-dependent countries in order to collectively influence the global oil market and maximize profit.
It has been reported that, President Maduro wrote a letter to fellow members of the bloc of major oil-producing countries on Sunday, accusing the US of trying to “seize” Venezuela’s oil reserves, the world’s largest.
“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.
On another note, Maduro 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.
But 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 United States 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.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, left, listens to Defence Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez during a government-organised civic-military march in Caracas, Venezuela, on Tuesday [Ariana Cubillos/AP Photo]