SAVAGE, Minnesota, Jan 10 - U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has told Reuters that additional U.S. sanctions on Venezuela could be lifted as soon as next week to facilitate oil sales, and that he will also meet next week with the heads of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank on their re-engagement with Venezuela.

Bessent said in an interview late on Friday that almost $5 billion worth of Venezuela's currently frozen IMF Special Drawing Rights monetary assets could be deployed to help rebuild the country's economy.

"We're de-sanctioning the oil that's going to be sold," Bessent said during a visit to a Winnebago Industries engineering facility. The Treasury was examining changes that would facilitate the repatriation of sale proceeds of the oil stored largely on ships back to Venezuela.

"How can we help that get back into Venezuela, to run the government, run the security services and get it to the Venezuelan people?" he said of the Treasury's sanctions analysis.

Asked when more sanctions could be removed from Venezuela, Bessent said, "It could be as soon as next week," but did not identify which ones.

The moves are part of the Trump administration's effort to stabilize Venezuela and encourage the return of U.S. oil producers to the country a week after U.S. forces captured Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro in Caracas and brought him to New York to face drug trafficking charges.

U.S. sanctions have banned international banks and other creditors from engaging with the Venezuelan government without a license. The institutions have cited this as an impediment to a complex $150 billion debt restructuring widely viewed as a key to the return of private capital to Venezuela.

On Friday evening, President Donald Trump signed an executive order blocking courts or creditors from impounding Venezuelan oil revenue held in U.S. Treasury accounts, declaring that these funds should be safeguarded to help Venezuela create "peace, prosperity and stability."

IMF, WORLD BANK RE-ENGAGEMENT

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