Washington DC - The US energy secretary said he will travel to Venezuela for oil talks at an unspecified date, while claiming that Washington's interests are not limited to that sector, media reported on Monday.

Since the January 3 capture and ousting of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, President Donald Trump has asserted that the US essentially controls Venezuela, while making clear that accessing its vast oil reserves is a key goal of the intervention.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright, however, said Venezuela's crude was never a "meaningful part of the decision-making" to intervene in the country.

"This was a geopolitical problem of a country that was a threat to all of its neighbors, a threat to the Western hemisphere, and a massive exporter of guns, of drugs, of criminals," Wright told Politico in an exclusive interview

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He said the country's oil is "a nice coincidence, but it is coincidental."

Sanctioned by Washington since 2019, Venezuela sits on about a fifth of the world's oil reserves and was once a major crude supplier to the US.

But it produced only around one percent of the world's total crude output in 2024, according to OPEC, having been hampered by years of underinvestment, sanctions, and embargoes.

Wright's trip, for which no date was given, would make him the highest-ranking official in the Trump administration to travel to Venezuela since Maduro was seized by US forces.

The US energy secretary plans to meet interim president Delcy Rodriguez and key players in the oil sector, despite the assertion that the visit is not "for more oil supply."

Since the military raid in January, Trump has said that US oil companies would invest "billions of dollars" to revive Venezuela's oil and gas industry.

The Republican claims Caracas would share in these profits, saying that the US is "getting along very well with the leadership of Venezuela."

Last month, Venezuelan lawmakers adopted reforms to a hydrocarbons bill that would roll back decades of tight state control over foreign investment in the sector.

The challenge now will be to get investors despite political instability, security concerns, and the prospect of heavy spending to get production facilities back in shape.