Deripaska Warns: US Control of Venezuelan Oil Aimed at Russia

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Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska flags a looming oil shock as Venezuela becomes the next frontline in global energy warfare

By TRH Foreign Affairs Desk

New Delhi, January 3, 2026 — As Washington escalates its intervention in Venezuela, a stark warning has emerged from Moscow—not from the Kremlin, but from one of Russia’s most influential industrialists.

In a post written in Russian on X, Oleg Deripaska, the billionaire businessman and founder of Basic Element, laid out what he sees as the real, unspoken stakes of the unfolding crisis: global control over oil—and price power over the world economy.

His message is blunt. If American “partners,” as he puts it with unmistakable irony, succeed in reaching Venezuela’s oil fields—and they have already reached Guyana’s—then more than half of the world’s oil reserves would fall under US control.

That, Deripaska argues, would fundamentally reshape the global energy order.

The $50 Barrel Ceiling

According to Deripaska, Washington’s strategic objective would not stop at access or production. The next step, he warns, would be price management—specifically, ensuring that oil prices do not rise above $50 per barrel.

Such a ceiling would be devastating for oil-dependent economies like Russia, Iran, and others that rely on higher prices to balance budgets, sustain social spending, and finance long-term development.

Energy dominance, in this reading, becomes a tool of macroeconomic discipline—not just against adversaries, but against entire economic models that depend on commodity revenues.

A Crisis for State Capitalism

Deripaska goes further, turning the lens inward on Russia. If US control over global oil pricing becomes reality, he argues, Russia’s existing economic structure—what he calls “our sacred state capitalism”—will come under severe strain.

He lists the consequences with striking candour: It will become harder to hide inefficiencies; impossible to avoid structural reforms; risky to continue grand state-led projects without competence; and unsustainable to sideline private business and competition.

In a particularly telling passage, Deripaska notes that private businesses are already becoming the main taxpayers in Russia—and that next year, the primary fiscal burden will fall squarely on them.

Energy price suppression, in other words, would not just be a geopolitical blow. It would be a domestic economic reckoning.

Venezuela as the Pivot Point

What makes Deripaska’s intervention notable is not just its content, but its timing. His warning aligns with growing global concern that Venezuela is being transformed from a sovereign crisis into a strategic energy prize.

From US oil majors preparing to enter the country, to military operations framed as “transitional control,” the pattern is increasingly difficult to ignore.

In Deripaska’s framing, Venezuela is not an isolated case—it is the keystone. Control Caracas, and Washington gains leverage over: Global oil supply; price stability; energy-dependent rivals; and, by extension, political autonomy across large parts of the world

Energy Is Power—And Power Is Centralizing

Deripaska’s post reads less like a partisan attack and more like a warning from within the system—a recognition that energy dominance is the fastest path to geopolitical dominance.

If oil prices, supply chains, and reserves are consolidated under one power center, then sovereignty itself becomes conditional. Venezuela, in this sense, is not the endgame. It is the lever.

And as the struggle over its oil intensifies, the question facing the world is no longer just about Caracas—but about who gets to decide the price, the rules, and the future of global energy.