Name: Venezuela's wealth isn’t only oil | DW Business
Uploaded: 2026-01-09T17:15:35.000Z
Duration: 1 min 59 s
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What's hidden under Venezuela's rainforest could shape your phone, car, and future wars.

And now, one of the world's richest countries in natural resources is entering a new chapter.

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We're going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure.

Venezuela isn't just sitting on the world's largest crude oil reserves.

It is also sitting on gold and strategic mineral minerals, all in one region.

A 112,000 square kilometers strip roughly the size of Cuba.

It was carved out of protected rainforest and indigenous lands in 2016 and launched by Nicolas Maduro himself.

The Venezuelan government claims it has 32 gold fields holding up to 8,900 metric tons of the precious metal that's close to the weight of the Eiffel Tower.

While that number isn't backed by geological data, a separate survey estimated there is 500 metric tons of gold in one of the mines alone.

Another mineral is one you have probably never heard of, but you are using it right now.

Short for Columbia Tantalite, this strategic mineral powers phones, laptops, electric cars, and missiles.

It is what makes batteries charge faster and devices smaller.

No one really knows how much coltan there is in Venezuela or who is mining it.

Much of it is extracted illegally, under the control of armed groups and corrupt officials.

The Orinoco mining arc also boasts vast reserves of diamonds, bauxite, iron ore, and

Now, after Maduro's capture and Trump's plans for Venezuela.

Will Venezuela's vast mineral wealth end up like its oil, filling American pockets?