By David Stockman - January 29, 2026

When we referred to the Donald’s cockamamie invasion of Venezuela, that’s exactly what we meant.

Washington’s War on Cocaine is already unnecessarily killing 20,000 Americans per year via adulterated cocaine and thousands more in the course of moving contraband product through violent criminal syndicates from Colombia to the USA retail streets. So bringing the US Navy, Air Force and CIA to a War on Drugs which should never, ever have been declared 55 years ago is the very height of folly.

Yet, that isn’t all. We also have the alleged prize of Venezuela’s 303 billion barrels of oil reserve. But that ain’t nearly what its cracked up to be, either.

To hear the Donald and his minions tell about it, you’d think that someone discovered the equivalent of Saudi Arabia’s legendary Ghawar field in the Orinoco Belt of Venezuela. Alas, nothing cold be further from the truth.

The Saudi Ghawar field, the largest ever discovered, was indeed a black gold mine. In terms of sheer reserve volume, the original petroleum liquids in place thanks to Mother Nature was in the range of 170 billion barrels. Approximately 95 billion barrels have already been lifted since production commenced in 1951, but since the Ghawar field is so naturally prolific the ultimate recovery ratio is estimated at about 75%.

That’s because during geologic times oil migrated upward into anticlinal structures, preserving its lighter composition due to minimal biodegradation and favorable trapping mechanisms. Accordingly, the world’s largest conventional oil field in terms of recoverable reserves encompasses just 8,400 square kilometers in eastern Saudi Arabia, and consists of lighter crude oils trapped in deep carbonate reservoirs from Jurassic-era limestone formations.

That is to say, figuratively speaking the Saudi’s have merely needed to stick a straw in the ground in order to pump to the surface at low cost most of the oil deposited by Mother Nature over the course of the geologic ages. Consequently, after 75 years of oil essentially burbling to the surface owing to natural reservoir pressure—aided in recent decades by water injection—there are still 30 billion barrels of recoverable reserves left at today’s technology and prices.

Needless to say, the Orinoco Belt in Venezuela represents the opposite extreme of geology and therefore cost of production. In contrast to Ghawar, the Orinoco Belt spans about about eight times more territory at about 55,000 square kilometers in eastern Venezuela, which areas contains vast accumulations of extra-heavy crude oil trapped in shallow, unconsolidated sandstone reservoirs.

These deposits formed from ancient marine sediments that underwent biodegradation over millions of years under shallow surface waters, resulted in highly viscous, dense oils with low mobility. Representative of Orinoco oils, Zuata crude has an API gravity of around 9 degrees, classifying it as extra-heavy, with a viscosity that makes it behave more like tar than liquid oil at room temperature.

The crucial economic point is this . . .

[SNIP]