SAN PATRICIO COUNTY, Texas — Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Friday that the United States has created an account within the Treasury Department where it is depositing profits raised from the sale of Venezuelan crude oil.
Wright’s statement to reporters in Texas is the first confirmation that the Trump administration has followed through on plans to move the money it is making selling millions of barrels of Venezuelan crude oil out of a fund it initially set up in Qatar. Democrats have criticized the administration for what they have called the opacity around who controls the money and how it will be spent.
That account is in the name of the Venezuelan national oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela, or PdVSA, Wright said. He said his office has hired third-party auditors to track the flow of profits from the sale of Venezuelan crude.
“The first flow went through Qatar. We already have an account in the U.S. Treasury,” Wright told reporters while at an event held at a Corpus Christi LNG facility. “All the funds now flow through an account, not into the ownership of the U.S. Treasury, just in an account, in the name of the Venezuelan national oil company PdVSA.”
