Venezuela does not “get” its oil from abroad – it produces it at home from some of the largest crude reserves on the planet, mainly in the Orinoco Belt and a few other major basins. Most of the question today is less about where the oil comes from geologically, and more about why a country with so much oil struggles to turn that into stable wealth.

Where Venezuela’s oil actually is

Venezuela’s oil is overwhelmingly domestic, not imported.

  • The country has around 300 billion barrels of proven reserves, the largest officially reported in the world.
  • Most of these reserves are heavy and extra‑heavy crude, which is thick and difficult to process compared with light, “easy” oil.

Main oil regions

  • Orinoco Belt: Huge strip along the Orinoco River; holds vast extra‑heavy crude and oil sands that account for the bulk of reserves.
  • Maracaibo Basin (western Venezuela): Older, more traditional fields, once the heart of Venezuelan production in the 20th century.
  • Eastern and offshore fields: Smaller but important contributors to total output.

Why you hear about “diluents” and imports

Even though Venezuela has enormous reserves, much of its crude is so heavy that it must be mixed with lighter oil or specialized chemicals (“diluents”) to flow and be exported.

  • Heavy Orinoco crude often needs imported light condensates or naphtha to be blended into “diluted crude oil” (DCO) that can move through pipelines and be sold.
  • Over the last decade, sanctions and underinvestment have made it harder for the state company PDVSA to import enough diluents and maintain upgraders and refineries.

So: the oil is Venezuelan, but the mixing agents and some technology and equipment often come from abroad (historically the U.S., and in more recent years also countries like Iran), which becomes a key vulnerability.

Latest news and forum‑style angle

In the mid‑2020s, Venezuela’s oil story is tangled up with politics, sanctions, and shifting alliances.

  • Despite having the world’s largest reserves, production is relatively low compared to that potential, constrained by decaying infrastructure, loss of skilled workers, and sanctions.
  • Political turmoil and leadership changes have repeatedly disrupted exports, with reports of exports being “paralyzed” or sharply reduced during crises and U.S. embargo enforcement.

On public forums and social media, this often turns into debates about:

  • Whether Venezuela’s crisis is mainly due to internal mismanagement versus foreign pressure and sanctions.
  • How a country can be “oil‑rich but cash‑poor,” becoming a textbook example of the resource curse.

“How do you mess up when you’re sitting on the biggest oil reserves in the world?”
This kind of comment shows up a lot in discussions, usually followed by long arguments about state control, corruption, and sanctions.

Multiview: how people explain it

Different camps answer “where does Venezuela get its oil” and “what went wrong” in different ways:

  • Economic/technical view :
    • The country has the oil, but the crude is heavy, capital‑intensive, and needs continuous investment, which collapsed after nationalizations and years of underfunding.
* Refineries and upgraders have deteriorated, so even domestic crude can’t be processed or exported efficiently.
  • Political/sanctions view :
    • Supporters of the government emphasize U.S. sanctions and embargoes for blocking access to markets, technology, and diluents, pushing Venezuela to rely on fewer, politically aligned partners.
* Critics argue that mismanagement and corruption hollowed out PDVSA long before sanctions were tightened, so sanctions aggravated an already deep structural problem.
  • Geopolitical view :
    • Venezuela’s massive reserves remain a strategic prize; news coverage often highlights how changes in leadership could reshape global oil markets if production ever ramps back up.

Simple takeaway

  • Venezuela “gets” its oil from huge domestic fields—especially the Orinoco Belt and older basins like Maracaibo—not from foreign suppliers.
  • What it does need from abroad are lighter liquids, technology, investment, and stable political conditions to actually turn those underground barrels into export revenue.

TL;DR: The ground in Venezuela is incredibly rich in oil; the bottleneck is above ground—politics, sanctions, and aging infrastructure, not a lack of oil under its soil.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.