Mapped: Venezuela’s Abundant Natural Resources

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Not Just Oil: Venezuela’s Natural Resources Mapped

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Key Takeaways

• Venezuela’s natural resources include the world’s largest proven oil reserves, totaling roughly 303 billion barrels.
• Gold, natural gas, and other minerals are reportedly abundant, but underdeveloped, ranking among the world’s top deposits.

Oil is the largest of Venezuela’s natural resource reserves, which has dominated recent news, but the country’s resource base extends far beyond crude. 

This visualization highlights the often overlooked scale of resources across oil, natural gas, gold, iron, bauxite, diamonds, and coal. 

The data for this graphic comes from several sources:

• OPEC’s Annual Statistical Bulletin (2025) for oil and gas reserves.
• The Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) analysis for gold reserves.
• Venezuela’s Ministry of Ecological Mining Development (MPPDME) mineral catalog for domestic resource estimates.
• The United States Geological Survey (USGS) Mineral Commodity Summaries (MSC) 2025, for mineral rankings.

Venezuela’s Abundant Natural Resources

A resource is a naturally occurring material that could be economically extracted now or in the future, while a reserve is the portion of an identified resource that can be economically and legally extracted today.

The data table below shows Venezuela’s resources and reserves for various energy fuels and minerals, along with each ones respective international ranking.

Bauxite and diamond totals are identified resources published by the Venezuelan government providing a snapshot of the geological potential. These have not been independently verified, so they shouldn’t be treated as confirmed reserves.

Gold’s totals are also not of proven underground gold reserves, but rather are based on an asset-level analysis of 24 gold-bearing mines in Venezuela shared by CSIS.

The Orinoco Oil Belt and Mining Arc

Nearly all of Venezuela’s estimated resource potential is concentrated along the Orinoco river. To the north, the Orinoco Oil Belt hosts Venezuela’s world-leading 303 billion barrels of extra-heavy crude oil reserves.

South of the river, is the Orinoco Mining Arc sitting atop the ancient Guiana Shield, a 1.7 billion-year-old craton.

The Venezuelan government’s mineral catalog and CSIS report world-leading deposits of gold, iron, bauxite, and most notably diamonds.

Government estimates indicate Venezuela surpasses Russia as the country with the largest reserves of diamonds in the world.

Massive Reserves, Minor Production

Despite the vast resource richness, Venezuela has endured years of humanitarian and economic crisis brought on by international sanctions, mismanagement, and electoral fraud.

The political environment has severely limited production across all resources with failing infrastructure and limited foreign investment.

Geopolitical and Economic Implications for Venezuela

With the U.S. capture of Venezuela’s President, Nicolás Maduro, the vast heavy crude and mineral endowment becomes a geopolitical lever under U.S. control.

Redirecting heavy-crude barrels toward Gulf Coast refineries may pressure Canadian heavy-oil producers while delivering a setback to Chinese access to Venezuelan supply.

Broadly, Maduro’s capture signals a shift toward raw power politics, where geology still matters, but governance and international alignment may increasingly decide who benefits.

Learn More on the Voronoi App

If you enjoyed today’s post, check out All of the World’s Oil Reserves by Country, in One Visualization on Voronoi, the new app from Visual Capitalist.