When US President Donald Trump announced on August 28 that the United States had secured majority control over some 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan oil through a private company, the North American Blue Energy Partners (NABEP), he called it “the biggest oil deal in history”. The White House fact sheet provided the details: NABEP’s 100-year concessions on 17 oilfields with 65 billion barrels of proven reserves, a 35 per cent Pentagon stake, a 20 per cent State Department offtake at cost with...