Venezuela Presses Guyana Land Dispute at U.N. as U.S. Secures Nuclear Material

Venezuela Presses Guyana Land Dispute at U.N. as U.S. Secures Nuclear Material

At the height of the Biden administration, Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro, at the time, appeared emboldened enough to threaten neighboring Guyana’s oil-rich region.

And while Maduro is gone, acting President Delcy Rodríguez still has an interest in the region. She is headed to the United Nations to make the case that the region belongs to her country.

The International Court of Justice in The Hague is holding a series of hearings with the South American neighbors which both claim ownership of Essequibo — a territory of nearly 62,000 square miles rich in gold, diamonds, timber and other natural resources, located near massive offshore oil deposits.

Venezuela has considered Essequibo its own since the Spanish colonial period, when the jungle region fell within its boundaries. But an 1899 decision by arbitrators from Britain, Russia and the United States drew the border along the Essequibo River largely in favor of Guyana.

Venezuela argues that a 1966 agreement sealed in Geneva to resolve the dispute effectively nullified the 19th-century arbitration.

The International Court of Justice in The Hague is holding a series of hearings with the South American neighbors which both claim ownership of Essequibo.https://t.co/gW2bsyIN2j

— Fay Moore (@MooreFay) May 10, 2026

Even if Venezuela is granted that region, it is difficult to imagine firms would be eager to invest resources in developing those oil fields… even with Maduro gone.

Francisco Monaldi, director of the Latin America Energy Program at Rice University’s Center for Energy Studies, said the history of expropriation will weigh on companies as they consider committing large amounts of capital in Venezuela under the current government.

“The history of Venezuela’s private investment in the oil sector is, of course, full of government reneging on contracts, even during much better times, but dramatically under the Chavez and Maduro regime,” he said.

Meanwhile, the U.S. in partnership with the the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and Venezuela, has successfully completed the removal of all remaining highly enriched uranium from a legacy research reactor in Venezuela, delivering it to a Department of Energy facility in South Carolina.

The United States and its partners have completed the removal of all enriched uranium from an old research reactor in Venezuela, the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration announced on Friday, UNN reports.

“The U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (DOE/NNSA), in cooperation with partners, has completed the removal of all remaining enriched uranium from an old research reactor in Venezuela,” the statement said.

The U.S. Department of Energy announced that specialists “safely removed 13.5 kilograms of uranium from the RV-1 reactor,” and “working in close cooperation with the IAEA throughout, the team securely packaged the uranium into a spent fuel container.”

The National Nuclear Security Administration NNSA also announced that the material would be processed to help fuel the country’s “nuclear renaissance.”

“The group then escorted the material 100 miles overland to a Venezuelan port. There, they transferred the cargo to a specialized carrier supplied by the U.K.’s Nuclear Transport Solutions,” the announcement said. “The vessel carried the material to the United States arriving on U.S. shores in early May. Upon arrival, U.S. teams unloaded the casks and transported them to the Savannah River Site (SRS) for processing and reuse.”

…”The DOE Office of Environmental Management took custody of the material at SRS. There, technicians will process the material at the H-Canyon chemical separations facility to obtain high-assay low-enriched uranium for America’s nuclear renaissance,” the NNSA said.

US removes all enriched uranium from Venezuela reactor, ships materials to SC in major nuclear security op | Alex Nitzberg, Fox News

The U.S. and partners completed the removal of all remaining enriched uranium from a legacy research reactor in Venezuela, the Department of… pic.twitter.com/VPtgYEkSYF

— Owen Gregorian (@OwenGregorian) May 9, 2026

Even as Venezuela continues the long, uneven process of digging out from the damage left by the Maduro era, its leadership bitterly clings to old territorial ambitions that risk stirring fresh instability in the region. That energy would be better used creating an incentive for current Venezuelan oil resources to be revived by giving investors assurances that the days of socialism are done.

The more reassuring development is happening far from the diplomatic spotlight. The successful removal of highly enriched uranium from Venezuelan soil marks a quiet but significant step forward for global nuclear security.

For all the noise surrounding Essequibo, it’s this kind of behind-the-scenes progress that actually makes the world a bit safer.

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