Rubbish Check
Guardian US · 14 August 2026
source“BP to develop offshore gasfield in Venezuela with firms linked to Trump administration”
R3/ 10
Lightly altered
Rubbish Rating — 1 = base fact, 10 = pure rubbish
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In short
Rubbish Talk rates the Guardian's claim that BP is teaming up with "firms linked to Trump administration" on a Venezuelan gasfield a 3/10, because the underlying deal is accurately reported but the phrase "linked to Trump administration" stretches to cover a family business tie (Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner's Qatari resort partners) and a foreign minister's investment pledge, neither of which is a formal administration connection.
The Verdict
Lightly altered. The core facts, the partners, the field, the political backdrop, are reported straight. The one iteration away from the base fact is the headline's compression of two different kinds of "Trump link" (a private family business tie and a foreign government's investment pledge) into a single phrase that implies something closer to official US government ties than actually exists.
What actually happened
BP secured a licence for the second phase of the offshore Loran gasfield in Venezuela, partnering with a Qatari firm owned by the Al-Khayyat brothers and with ADNOC's overseas investment arm, run by UAE minister Sultan Al Jaber. The deal follows Trump's call for foreign oil firms to invest in rebuilding Venezuela's fossil fuel industry after the ousting of Nicolás Maduro in January, and makes BP one of the first major international oil companies back in the country alongside Shell, which took the first phase of the same field earlier in the summer.
Key facts
- BP's partners are a Qatari firm owned by the Al-Khayyat brothers, who are separately working with Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner on an Albania resort, and ADNOC's overseas arm, led by Sultan Al Jaber.
- Al Jaber pledged in 2025 that the UAE would raise US energy investment to $440bn (£325bn) over a decade, a diplomatic commitment, not a role inside the Trump administration.
- Shell already holds the first-phase Loran licence; Eni is separately in talks with Caracas.
- Venezuelan oil output has risen from roughly 1m to 1.2m barrels a day since the US took control of the country's oil industry, with exports to US refineries at their highest since 2019.
- Venezuela produced over 3.5m barrels a day in the late 1990s as a top-10 global producer, versus today's 1.2m.
What to watch for
- Whether US majors ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips, described as slower to move, follow BP and Shell into Venezuela.
- Whether output keeps climbing toward the 1990s peak or stalls, which will test whether the "revival" framing holds.
- Whether the Al-Khayyat and Al Jaber ties translate into any formal US policy benefit, which would justify tighter "administration" language next time.
About this scoreThe R-Score is Rubbish Talk's editorial opinion on how far a headline's framing sits from what the underlying facts support. It is a judgement about presentation and emphasis, not an allegation that any outlet has acted dishonestly. Every figure we rely on is linked under Receipts so you can check it yourself.
