Trump says Venezuelan oil could replenish depleted U.S. stockpiles. Will it?

President Trump has framed last week's deal for the U.S. government to take a stake in Venezuela's oil reserves as a boon not just for gas prices, but also for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which has dropped to historically low levels."One of the things I am going to do with the Venezuelan Oil is fill up the Strategic National Reserves," Mr. Trump wrote on social media Sunday, saying "the 'topping out' process will begin very shortly, and is a Gift from Venezuela to the People of the United States."The plan could face hurdles, energy experts say. The oil produced in Venezuela is far heavier than most of the crude in U.S. reserves and would need to be converted. And rebuilding Venezuela's ailing oil industry could take years, requiring oil producers to invest billions while navigating the country's still-uncertain political and legal landscape."This project is very unlikely to produce new investment and new production anytime soon," said David Goldwyn, a former federal energy official who serves as president of the consulting firm Goldwyn Global Strategies and chairs the Atlantic Council's energy advisory group. He predicted the U.S. is "at least two years, if not five to seven years at best, away from seeing that production reach the SPR, directly or indirectly."What is the Strategic Petroleum Reserve?Established in the 1970s, after an oil embargo by Arab states choked off shipments to the U.S., the Strategic Petroleum Reserve has room for more than 700 million barrels of oil across a series of massive underground salt caverns in Texas and Louisiana.But currently, the reserve holds just under 290 million barrels, its lowest level since the 1980s.Mr. Trump has blamed the shortfall on the Biden administration, which released more than 200 million barrels of oil from the reserve in an effort to tamp down energy prices, especially in the early days of the Russia-Ukraine war. The Trump administration has taken similar action to deal with the effects of the Iran war, pumping out over 100 million barrels in recent months.