This article was written by Sarah Ritchie and David Baxter, and was published in the Toronto Star on January 7, 2026.
Prime Minister Mark Carney said his government is working to expand access to oil markets in Asia now that Canada faces the prospect of Venezuelan oil displacing Canadian product in the American market. His remarks came after Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre urged Carney to “immediately approve a pipeline to the Pacific Coast” in a letter shared on social media Tuesday.
In Paris for talks on Ukraine Tuesday, Carney was asked if U.S. President Donald Trump’s push to take control of Venezuela’s oil industry heightens the need for a pipeline to B.C.’s northwest coast.
“We welcome the prospects of greater prosperity in Venezuela. But we also see the competitiveness of Canadian oil,” Carney said.
“And in that context, a pipeline and exports to Asia, we’ve got competitive product, and we’d be diversifying our markets, and that’s one of the reasons why we signed the comprehensive MOU with Alberta. So we’d be working toward that.”
Trump has said he plans to take control of the country’s oil industry and encourage American companies to revitalize the sector.
Poilievre wrote in his letter to Carney this move by U.S. has “altered the global energy landscape.”
He wrote Canada was right to refuse to recognize an “illegitimate regime” and said he supports the right of the Venezuelan people to choose their own future.
He warned Venezuela’s heavy crude production “could rapidly rebound to historic levels,” putting it in direct competition with Canada for space in U.S. refineries that specialize in heavy crude. “Every barrel the United States sources from Venezuela could mean one less barrel these refineries would buy from Canada. We therefore need new markets to sell to, and we need them quickly,” he wrote.
Trump claims Venezuela will provide 30 million to 50 million barrels
This article was written by the Associated Press and was published in the Toronto Star on January 7, 2026.
U.S. President Donald Trump said Tuesday that Venezuela would be providing 30 million to 50 million barrels of oil to the U.S., and he pledged to use proceeds from the sale of this oil “to benefit the people” of both countries.
The White House is organizing a meeting Friday with U.S. oil company executives to discuss Venezuela, which the Trump administration has been pressuring to open its vastbutstruggling oil industry more widely to American investment and knowhow. Representatives of Exxon, Chevron and ConocoPhillips are expected to attend the White House meeting, according to a person familiar with the matter who requested anonymity.
Earlier Tuesday, officials in Caracas announced at least 24 Venezuelan security officers were killed in the deadofnight U.S. military operation to capture Nicolás Maduro and spirit him to the United States to face drug charges.
And the country’s acting president, Delcy Rodríguez, pushed back on Trump, who earlier this week warned she’d face an outcome worse than Maduro’s if she does not “do what’s right” and overhaul Venezuela into a country that aligns with U.S. interests, including by granting access to American energy companies.
Venezuela’s attorney general, Tarek William Saab, said overall “dozens” of officers and civilians were killed in the strike in Caracas and said prosecutors would investigate the deaths in what he described as a “war crime.” He didn’t specify if the estimate was specifically referring to Venezuelans.
In addition to the Venezuelan security officials, Cuba’s government had previously confirmed 32 Cuban military and police officers working in Venezuela were killed in the raid. The Cuban government said the personnel killed belonged to the Revolutionary Armed Forces and the Ministry of the Interior, the two main security agencies.
Seven U.S. service members were also injured in the raid, according to the Pentagon. Five have already returned to duty, while two are still recovering from their injuries. The injuries included gunshot wounds and shrapnel injuries, according to a U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
With oil trading at roughly $56 (U.S.) a barrel, the transaction Trump announced late Tuesday could be worth as much as $2.8 billion. The U.S. goes through an average of roughly 20 million barrels a day of oil and related products, so Venezuela’s transfer would be the equivalent of as much as two and a half days of supply, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Despite Venezuela having the world’s largest proven crude oil reserves, it only produces on average about one million barrels day, significantly below the U.S. average daily production of 13.9 million barrels a day during October.
Colombia’s Foreign Affairs Minister Rosa Villavicencio said Tuesday she’ll meet with the U.S. Embassy’s charge d’affaires in Bogota to present him with a formal complaint over the recent threats issued by the United States. On Sunday, Trump said he wasn’t ruling out an attack on Colombia.
This opinion was written by Jamie McGeever and was published in the Globe & Mail on January 7, 2026.
There were likely many motives behind America’s capture and arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on Saturday, but one little-discussed factor could be the White House’s concerns about the waning global prominence of the “petrodollar.”
Venezuela’s oil output is currently modest at barely one million barrels a day, but its reported reserves of around 300 billion barrels – 17 per cent of the global stock – are the world’s largest.
President Donald Trump has made it clear that the U.S. is interested in tapping this enormous potential, stating that he plans to have U.S. energy majors revitalize the Latin American country’s flailing oil industry.
Keeping all this future production within the U.S. orbit could affect more than just energy markets, however, as it would create a lot more petrodollars – a tool that has long helped the U.S. maintain its dominance in the global financial system.
The term “petrodollar” was coined in the mid-1970s when the U.S. and Saudi Arabia agreed that global oil sales would be denominated in dollars, creating a new source of demand for the greenback and cementing U.S. strategic, economic, and political power.
The period between 2002 and mid-2008 – when oil almost reached US$150 a barrel – potentially marked the peak of the petrodollar’s powers.
At that time, the U.S. was the world’s largest importer of crude, enabling oil-producing countries to amass huge trade surpluses, much of which was recycled back into the vast U.S. Treasury market. This put downward pressure on U.S. and therefore, global, bond yields and interest rates.
Fast forward to 2026, and the environment looks very different. Thanks to the shale oil revolution, the U.S. is now the world’s largest oil producer and has been a net exporter since 2021.
Meanwhile, many producer nations like Saudi Arabia now use their oil-driven trade surpluses to plug their own widening domestic budget deficits.
Moreover, the rise of China’s economic power and new geopolitical rifts have reduced the percentage of the global oil trade denominated in dollars. There are no official figures, but it is estimated that as much as 20 per cent of the world’s crude trade is now priced in currencies other than the dollar, such as the euro or Chinese yuan.
While the White House may want the dollar’s exchange rate to be lower, it is keen to maintain its dominance in global markets.
The link between the dollar and oil has also shifted.
Analysts at JP Morgan estimate that during the 2005-2013 period, a 1-per-cent appreciation of the U.S. trade-weighted dollar reduced the price of Brent crude by about 3 per cent. In the 2014-2022 period, a 1-per-cent rise in the dollar reduced the price of Brent by just 0.2 per cent. And last year, the dollar and oil both fell, rather than moving in opposite directions.
So whether one is looking at oil producers’ official holdings of Treasuries or oil revenues as a share of global capital flows, it is clear that the power of the petrodollar is on the decline.
This mirrors the dollar’s slow but steady decline in global status over the past few decades. The greenback’s share of foreign currency reserves is currently the lowest in 25 years, and while it remains the pre-eminent currency of global trade, that position is starting to fray also.
The Trump administration is pushing back, however. While the White House may want the dollar’s exchange rate to be lower, it is keen to maintain its dominance in global markets – and the recent events in Venezuela could be part of this wider effort.
Until Mr. Trump returned to office almost a year ago, there appeared to be little appetite in Washington to push back against the global tide of geopolitically driven diversification away from the dollar.
But the Trump administration has taken a stronger stand. It is promoting dollar-pegged “stablecoins” to strengthen the dollar’s role in digital payments and global finance more broadly. It has also threatened to impose tariffs on countries seeking to develop alternatives to the dollar, most notably the BRICS group of developing nations.
Gaining a degree of control over the world’s largest proven oil reserves could be part of this effort, especially as it involves muscling out China and Russia – the Maduro regime’s allies – in the process.
“The dollar is still the key currency in the oil market, and the U.S. is trying to preserve this,” says Hung Tran, non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.
Richard Werner, professor of banking and economics at the University of Winchester, agrees that Washington’s actions in Venezuela are likely aimed at bolstering the petrodollar system.
Ultimately though, he believes these extreme actions could be seen as a sign of “desperation” that could accelerate the decline of the petrodollar if BRICS nations and others in the “Global South” baulk at Washington’s use of military force to maintain currency dominance.
This opinion was written by Rita Trichur and was published in the Globe & Mail on January 7, 2026.
A mural features oil pumps and wells in Caracas, Venezuela, on Tuesday. Chevron, which already operates in Venezuela, is reportedly sending more oil ships to the South American country.
Trump’s plan for American energy companies comes with legal, financial and security threats that can’t be ignored
Oh, to be a fly on the wall inside the boardrooms of major American oil companies these days.
As U.S. President Donald Trump expounds on his fever dream of expropriating Venezuelan oil by running the failed petrostate, he is musing about turning over its rotting oil infrastructure to American companies and reimbursing their costs to rebuild it.
Deposed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, meanwhile, said he was a “prisoner of war” after he pleaded not guilty to narco-terrorism and other charges in federal court in New York.
“The oil companies were absolutely aware that we were thinking about doing something,” Mr. Trump told NBC News on Monday. “But we didn’t tell them we were going to do it.”
Mr. Trump would have us believe there’s no reason to worry that U.S. energy companies were caught flat-footed by Mr. Maduro’s capture or the “tremendous amounts of money” required to reconstruct Venezuela’s oil infrastructure.
Chevron, which already operates in Venezuela, is reportedly sending more oil ships to the South American country. But don’t expect these surreal developments to spark a stampede by other U.S. oil giants.
So far, Exxon Mobil and Conoco Phillips appear circumspect about investing in Venezuela, even though Mr. Trump already has the business case figured out for them.
With his central-planning fetish on full display, Mr. Trump told NBC News in that same interview that U.S. oil companies could be “up and running” in Venezuela in under 18 months.
Details, schmetails.
The biggest head trip is yet to come for the U.S. oil industry.
U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright and his cabinet colleague, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, are planning their first formal calls with top executives to ratchet up the pressure on energy companies to return to Venezuela, according to a report in Politico that cited four confidential sources.
With U.S. government debt topping US$38-trillion, who will finance this endeavour? Let’s not kid ourselves, U.S. sanctions against Venezuela remain a serious obstacle for banks.
Perhaps the U.S. oil industry can take a page out of Mr. Maduro’s playbook and transact in cryptocurrency, as the ousted leader is alleged to have done. Stablecoins pegged to the U.S. dollar could prove handy because the Genius Act and the Clarity Act have known loopholes for sanction evasion.
Mr. Trump’s rigorous cost-benefit analysis notwithstanding, the initial market enthusiasm over U.S. oil majors potentially resuming expansion in Venezuela was overblown.
There are staggering legal, financial and security risks for American energy companies that cannot be ignored willy-nilly by Csuite executives and corporate directors.
For instance, Venezuela’s state oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A., or PDVSA, is subject to U.S. sanctions, and so is company president Héctor Andres Obregón Pérez.
PDVSA is allegedly implicated in drug trafficking, according to the U.S. indictment against Mr. Maduro and other insiders of his regime.
Specifically, Mr. Maduro’s son, Nicolás Ernesto Maduro Guerra, is accused of using a Falcon 900 plane owned by PDVSA to transport “large packages wrapped in tape that the captain understood were drugs” from Venezuela’s Margarita Island, states the U.S. court filing.
Mr. Maduro Guerra, the filing alleges, “was present while the PDVSA plane was loaded and, on one occasion, stated that the plane could go wherever it wanted, including the United States.”
None of the allegations have been tested in court.
Even so, why would any reputable U.S. company pursue a joint venture or assume control of assets from a company so closely associated with the Maduro regime?
Separately, the recent rally in Venezuela’s distressed debt and PDVSA bonds is entirely premature.
Venezuela defaulted on US$60-billion worth of bonds back in 2017. Total liabilities, including interest amassed over those nine years, are unknown. What’s more, the ability of investors to recover value from the debt hinges on increased production.
That may not happen if there is civil strife.
Venezuela’s Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, who is also named in the U.S. indictment, continues to wield significant power in Venezuela because of his iron-fisted control of paramilitary groups known as the colectivos.
The Miami Herald is reporting that Mr. Cabello, who the U.S. government accuses of taking bribes connected to cocaine trafficking, is mobilizing the colectivos in Caracas.
But perhaps the biggest risk to the White House’s plan for American energy companies to extract more Venezuelan oil is Mr. Trump himself. His mercurial decisionmaking exudes regulatory risk – the kind that jeopardizes costly capital investments.
U.S. oil companies have a long history of navigating unstable political environments and dealing with irrational strongmen. But they’ve never encountered anything like Donald Trump.
This article was written by Jeffrey Jones and Emma Graney, and was published in the Globe & Mail on January 7, 2026.
Pumpjacks draw out oil and gas from well heads near Carstairs, Alta., in February. Financial risks in the oil sands, as the Prime Minister suggests, are smaller than in Venezuela.
Prime Minister Mark Carney is trumpeting his support for Canada’s oil producers as they struggle with the uncertainty of a U.S. takeover of Venezuela’s oil industry, saying they should be able to dodge the threat.
Mr. Carney said on Tuesday Canadian producers will be competitive over the medium to long term. The country’s production is low-risk, low-cost and may get more access to global markets should a new pipeline to the West Coast get built, he said.
“And in that context, a pipeline and exports to Asia, we’ve got competitive product, and we’d be diversifying our markets, and that’s one of the reasons why we signed the comprehensive MOU with Alberta. So we’d be working toward that,” Mr. Carney said in Paris.
Mr. Carney has previously pushed for climate action over increasing fossil fuel production, but has been increasingly warming to the industry as trade tensions simmer into a new year and sovereignty threats persist.
Last year, the federal and Alberta governments signed a memorandum of understanding to jointly pursue a new oil pipeline to the B.C. coast from Alberta. A route has yet to be decided for the proposal, and no private-sector proponent has stepped forward to build it.
It also faces opposition from the B.C. government and from First Nations on the province’s northern coast.
Robert Johnston, director of energy and natural resources policy at the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy, said he was heartened that the Prime Minister made the comments to help calm market fears that resulted in a selloff in Canadian energy shares on Monday.
“I think focusing on the positives of our oil sector, and trying to tackle the challenges and the shortcomings is the right approach. I think in the past we were sort of too stuck on the opposite of that,” Mr. Johnston said.
The potential for increasing Venezuelan exports rattled markets after U.S. forces captured President Nicolás Maduro and his wife in a military raid on Saturday. Mr. Trump asserted that “we’re in charge” of the country and would bring in U.S. oil companies to take over energy infrastructure that has been underfunded and mismanaged for years.
Both countries have massive reserves of heavy crude oil, and Canada’s exports to the U.S. have surged as Venezuela’s have dwindled under sanctions. The prospect of stiffer competition injected new uncertainty into the Canadian oil patch, said Menno Hulshof, analyst at TD Cowen.
It could be several years before Venezuelan output increases meaningfully, given the record of civil unrest that tends to follow regime change globally. Meanwhile, the government in charge will have to develop a fiscal policy and companies will have to amass capital and labour to fix dilapidated infrastructure, he said.
Previously, the outlook for Canadian heavy oil was quite positive, with discounts to West Texas Intermediate benchmark oil, known as differentials, narrower than historical levels with new access to Asian markets via the expanded Trans Mountain pipeline.
“The question now is, can Canada compete on heavy oil on a timeline that is impossible to define?” Mr. Hulshof said.
Financial risks in the oil sands, as the Prime Minister suggests, are smaller than in Venezuela. Canadian projects face high upfront costs but the break-even cost of a barrel is much lower once they get going.
Given substantial geopolitical risks in Venezuela, oil majors would seek a far higher risk-adjusted return than what they expect in the oil sands, Mr. Johnston said.
ATB Financial analyst Carol Kamel wrote that production can continue for decades with minimal depletion once a project is built. She pointed to Canadian Natural Resources’ oil sands mining and upgrading assets, which still hold 43 years of reserve life.
Operators have also achieved major cost efficiencies through the use of autonomous haul trucks, artificial-intelligence inspection robots and better water management, she said.
On Monday, Calgary-based Suncor Energy Inc. said it had met several targets a year ahead of schedule – including reducing the break-even cost of a barrel by US$10. Suncor has also significantly increased production, hitting 860,000 barrels a day in 2025, up 32,000 b/d from 2024. Those figures reflect a broader trend across the sector that has seen record volumes pumped out of the oil sands.
If a rise in Venezuelan production becomes a competitive threat for Canadian oil shipments on the U.S. Gulf Coast, it strengthens the case for a new pipeline to the west, despite the fact that several risks remain, Mr. Hulshof said.
On Tuesday, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservative Party government set up a website to promote a new, multibillion-dollar Northwest Coast oil pipeline, saying the application should be ready to submit to the Major Projects Office by July 1.
Ms. Smith said on social media that the situation in Venezuela only adds to the importance of expediting construction of the project.
However, B.C. Premier David Eby, a staunch opponent to such a project, said the toppling of Mr. Maduro and its potential impact on U.S. oil markets underscores the need to build domestic refining capacity to process Canadian crude.
Mr. Eby, at an unrelated news conference, said he welcomed the departure of Mr. Maduro but said the U.S. intervention is unsettling, “and I think that it underlines the critical work that we need to do as Canadians to deepen our independence, to stand on our own two feet,” he told reporters.
He noted that the Trans Mountain pipeline required a massive public bailout, and there is currently no private investor for a new pipeline.
“I don’t understand why, if we’re talking about massive public investment into supporting Albertans in this fragile global time, we can’t talk about supporting all Canadians with oil and gas products that are made right here at home while we transition,” he said. “And so I hope that that’s where some of the conversation goes following the uncertainty that comes from Venezuela.”
The industry has for decades closed refineries across the country, saying they were unprofitable given the relatively small size of the domestic market.
Mr. Johnston said the best way for Canada to deal with a potential oil-supply shock is to diversify markets. “So from that perspective I think it does bolster the case. It’s not that I think that the U.S. is an unreliable partner or we’ll be flooded by Venezuelan crude. It’s just that, even with the Trans Mountain expansion, we’re still far too dependent on a single market.”
As we edge towards an irreversible point, the climate becomes less a challenge to manage and more a hostile environment in which many will struggle to live, writes Keith Nicholls. Plus letters from Dr David Lowry and Leo Young
Over the holiday period, the Guardian leader column is looking ahead at the themes of 2026. Today we look at how the struggle to adapt to a dangerously warming world has become a test of global justice
Mandates targeting lifestyle choices, such as urban car bans, can provoke strong resistance, even among people who already try to live sustainably, new study warns
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