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СпутникиРНSpaceXРоскосмосNASAThe U.S., not Delhi or Caracas, announced Venezuela’s Acting President Delcy Rodríguez’s visit to India last week. The U.S. role in pushing the oil trade is hard to ignore.
The visit of Venezuela’s Acting President Delcy Rodríguez to India from June 3-6 did not produce any agreements. However, it laid the foundation for cooperation in energy, mining – gold, diamonds and critical minerals – as well as animal husbandry, transportation, automotive and pharmaceuticals between the two countries.
Talks between India and Venezuela were “very business-like, very substantive,” Rudrendra Tandon, secretary (East) in India’s Ministry for External Affairs, told reporters. The “message that came across very clearly from the Venezuelan side is that they are open for business,” Tandon said. Consequently, “there are great opportunities for India.”
Rodríguez’s visit set off a controversy even before she set foot in India. The announcement of her visit came not from New Delhi or Caracas but Washington. On May 21, ahead of his visit to India, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio disclosed Rodríguez’s planned trip to India, presenting Venezuelan crude oil and American energy supplies to meet India’s future energy needs.
At a time when India is under immense pressure from the Donald Trump administration to halt its purchases of Russian crude, Rubio’s announcement was understandably seen as yet another instance of India’s decisions regarding its energy security being made not in Delhi but in the U.S.
India imports 88 percent of its energy needs and has been seeking to diversify its sourcing of oil and gas over the decades. Until last year, India’s major suppliers were Russia, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
But Delhi’s purchase of discounted Russian crude since 2022 prompted the Trump administration to impose an additional 25 percent punitive tariffs on India. While India did reduce its oil purchases from Russia to step up oil imports Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, its energy security ran into trouble again, with the U.S.-Israel war on Iran leading to the Strait of Hormuz crisis, which has in turn impacted India’s oil and gas imports from the Persian Gulf.
Venezuela has among the largest oil reserves in the world. With India importing most of its oil requirements and looking to new sources, it is eyeing Venezuelan oil. India sees “a perfect complementarity” in the bilateral relationship, Tandon said.
The India-Venezuela relationship is not new. It goes back decades, with hydrocarbons fueling the bilateral trade. In 2012, India raced ahead of China to emerge as the largest Asian importer of Venezuelan crude oil. U.S. sanctions on the Venezuelan economy, first imposed in 2005, forced India to cut its purchase of Venezuelan crude in 2019-2020, and then again in 2025 under pressure from the first and current Trump administrations.
Following its removal of Nicolas Maduro from power as Venezuelan president, the Trump administration’s taking control of Venezuela’s oil industry and the lifting of economic sanctions on Venezuela, the South American country has opened up for business. And India is among the countries lining up for Venezuelan crude.
After a gap of five years, India and Venezuela are looking to rebuild ties, and crude oil are top-most on their agenda. Even before Rodríguez arrived in Delhi, India’s purchase of Venezuelan crude surged. In fact, in May, Venezuela had already emerged as India’s third largest supplier of crude oil.
During her time in India, Rodríguez visited the privately run Jamnagar refinery in Gujarat that refines crude imported from Venezuela. The idea is to expand cooperation into exploration, production and refining, Tandon said.
Besides crude oil, critical minerals also figured in the bilateral talks. India is scouting for partners in the critical minerals sector as it seeks to cut its reliance on China, which dominates the mining and refining of these metals.
The issue of Venezuela paying up money owed to Indian oil and pharma companies also came up during the talks. The overseas arm of India’s state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corporation or ONGC Videsh, is yet to receive over $500 million from its Venezuelan investments, while outstanding dues to Indian pharmaceutical companies are estimated at $700-$800 million.
ONGC Videsh operated the San Cristobal onshore oilfield in partnership with Venezuela’s national oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA), since 2008. Though the fields hold commercially attractive reserves, production collapsed as sanctions cut off access to drilling rigs, spare parts, services and financing.
Rodríguez also toured a pharmaceutical unit and an auto-components manufacturing facility, pointing to potential areas where India would like to make forays into Venezuela.
During Maduro’s tenure, China and Venezuela had developed a distinctive “oil-for-loans” cooperation model. A Reuters report said China’s imports touched about 470,000 barrels per day during 2025, which is about 4.5 percent of China’s seaborne crude imports. This is now freed up for countries like India to purchase.
As India looks to Venezuela to strengthen its energy security, Delhi should move with caution. The political situation in Venezuela remains unstable. Rodríguez still holds the title of only “acting president.” It is unclear how long her government will last. If there is a change of government in Caracas, will it affect agreements and arrangements reached with her government now? Reports in the media suggest a power struggle between Rodríguez, who belongs to Maduro’s “Chavista” revolutionary team, and opposition pro-democracy leader and Trump ally, María Corina Machado, the 2025 Nobel Prize winner. Tandon acknowledged a “very frank conversation” between Modi and Rodríguez on the political transition in Venezuela but did not give details.
While in India, Rodríguez had a rather unusual meeting with Sergio Gor, the U.S. ambassador to India, adding to speculation about the U.S. role in promoting India’s energy ties with Venezuela.
Closer alignment between India and the U.S., especially with an unpredictable Trump in the White House, and on crucial matters like India’s energy security, may not be in India’s best interests.
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