Hawaiʻi relies on imported oil to run its electrical grid. The state got over a third of its fuel from South America last year — but none from Venezuela, which claims to have the largest oil reserves in the world.
Venezuela reportedly has over 300 million barrels of oil in the ground, but it produces barely 1% of the global output of crude oil.
Over the last two decades, mismanagement, infrastructure decline, and international sanctions have crippled Venezuela's state-run oil industry.
In 2019, President Donald Trump placed an embargo on oil imports from Venezuela. At that time, Hawaiʻi was primarily getting its oil from Libya, the U.S., and Russia.
Now, Trump wants U.S. companies to kickstart Venezuela’s oil exports. After the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife by U.S. military forces, Trump pledged military backing for U.S. oil companies looking to operate in Venezuela.
Although available records show that Hawaiʻi hasn’t imported any oil from Venezuela since at least 2016, the state has increasingly depended on other South American countries for oil since 2022, when all fuel imports from Russia were halted in response to the invasion of Ukraine.
In 2025, Hawaiʻi's top source for fuel oil was Argentina. According to the latest available state data, Hawaiʻi imported just over 11 million barrels of oil from the South American country in the last year — enough to fill about 700 Olympic swimming pools.
Hawaiʻi also got about a million barrels from Brazil, Venezuela’s neighbor.
Learn more about Hawaiʻi’s fuel imports with the Hawaiʻi State Energy Office dashboard.
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