By Benoît Morenne

President Trump said he "kept his promise to drill, baby, drill," with U.S. oil production up by more than 600,000 barrels a day and American natural gas production at an all-time high. He also said the U.S. had received more than 80 million barrels of oil from Venezuela, where the Trump administration has taken control of Venezuela oil sales.

The resilience of the U.S. oil industry has been a boon to Trump. Despite low prices last year, drillers cranked out a record 13.6 million barrels of crude on average each day, defying predictions that the twin threat of Trump's tariffs and competition from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies would push the national output into decline. The increase was more modest than Trump said: U.S. oil production was up about 370,000 barrels a day last year compared to 2024. The federal forecaster expects natural gas production to hit new records this year and next.

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February 24, 2026 21:42 ET (02:42 GMT)

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