Why is the US so interested in Venezuelan oil? See these charts.

In the wake of U.S. forces' capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, the United States has taken control of Venezuela's oil supply. And President Donald Trump already has sat down with industry executives to hash out how to revive the country's once-booming industry.

Data from the Energy Institute Statistical Review obtained by USA TODAY gives a peek into how Venezuela's oil industry operates and why the Central American country is so important to U.S. oil interests.

Here is what we can learn about the Venezuelan oil industry in three charts.

Venezuela had a booming oil industry in the 1990s and early 2000s, but by 2015, the average number of barrels Venezuelan oil companies were producing each day plummeted.

Some of that collapse had to do with the policies of President Hugo Chavez, the late authoritarian leader who served from 2002 through 2013. Though the industry had been nationalized for decades, Chavez pushed state control further, asserting governmental control over the oil industry.

In 2007, when Venezuela was producing 3.2 million barrels of oil a day – more than three times what it produces today – Chavez pushed for his government to take a larger stake in private oil companies' projects in Venezuela.

American companies such as ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips left the country when they refused to comply with Chavez's plan. Only Chevron remained.

Venezuela also suffered from a rapid drop in oil prices that started in 2014. The industry suffered another blow when the United States imposed sanctions on it in January 2019.

Aside from exporting its dense, heavy crude oil, Venezuela has the capacity to refine oil. But data shows that the country is moving significantly less of its crude oil through its refineries than it did at peak production.

If Venezuelan refineries were operating at capacity, the nation would have produced more than 1 million additional barrels of oil a day in 2023, according to the data. But a report from the Congressional Research Service casts doubt on whether production could reach that capacity without "significant investments and maintenance."

Darren Woods, CEO of ExxonMobil, also raised questions about the Venezuelan oil industry's capacity in a roundtable meeting with Trump Jan. 10.

"We've had our assets seized there twice, so you can imagine to enter a third time would require some pretty significant changes from what we've historically seen here," Woods said. "If we look at the legal and commercial constructs, frameworks in place today in Venezuela, today it's uninvestable."

Nonetheless, Venezuela has the largest oil reserves of any country in the world, just under 304 billion barrels in 2024. That's rivaled only by Middle East giant Saudi Arabia, which had 298 billion barrels in reserves the same year.

Venezuela also has more oil in reserves than all of North America's combined 243 billion barrels.