New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday held talks with Venezuelan acting president Delcy Rodríguez, focusing on energy cooperation at a time when India has sharply increased imports of Venezuelan crude under a new US-backed arrangement that emerged after the removal of Nicolás Maduro earlier this year.Rodríguez, who is on a working visit to India from June 3 to 6, was accompanied by a large ministerial delegation that included Venezuela’s foreign, finance, science and transportation ministers. Besides meeting Modi, she also held talks with External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and was scheduled to meet Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri.The visit was first disclosed not by New Delhi or Caracas but by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on May 21, who revealed Rodríguez’s planned trip while pitching American energy exports to India, presenting Venezuelan crude and US energy supplies as part of the same conversation on India’s future energy needsRodriguez assumed the acting presidency after former president Nicolas Maduro was removed in a US military operation on January 3. Since then, the Trump administration has issued temporary sanctions relief authorising US companies to do business in Venezuela’s oil, mining and financial sectors. Venezuelan oil revenues flow into US Treasury accounts, with disbursements to Caracas subject to State Department approval.MEA Secretary (East) Rudrendra Tandon told reporters after the talks that Venezuela had already emerged as India’s third largest crude supplier in spot purchases this month. He said the two sides discussed participation by Indian companies in both upstream and downstream activities in Venezuela’s oil sector.“The Venezuelan energy sector is undergoing a fundamental transformation. They see India as a stable demand for many years to come. Therefore, there exists a perfect complementarity for India and Venezuela to work in the energy sector, both upstream as well as downstream,” he said. No agreements were signed during this visit.India’s surge in Venezuelan crude purchases this year is driven in large part by the disruption to West Asia supply caused by the US-Israel war on Iran, which has effectively shut the Strait of Hormuz for much of the last three months, forcing Indian refiners to seek alternative sources.Venezuela’s oil exports rose to 1.25 million barrels per day in May, their third consecutive monthly increase, according to Reuters, based on tanker movements and records from Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), Venezuela’s state-owned oil and natural gas company. India received 427,000 barrels per day, making it the second largest destination for Venezuelan crude after the United States. Reliance Industries has emerged as one of the three largest buyers of Venezuelan crude in recent months, purchasing cargoes directly from PDVSA and from traders Chevron, Vitol and Trafigura, according to the same data.Asked about the modalities of payment for Indian oil purchases from Venezuela, specifically whether money would flow to the US Treasury or to the Venezuelan government, Tandon said companies operating in Venezuela would have to factor in “existing payment arrangements”, without elaborating.Tandon said the two leaders had a “very frank conversation” on the political transition in Venezuela following the January US military operation but declined to go into details. “We all know that there was a transition in Venezuela, but we are working with a government that is friendly, that wants a partnership with India,” he said.The outstanding dividend of over $500 million owed to ONGC Videsh from its Venezuelan investments came up multiple times, Tandon said. “It is an issue that is there on the table and they are very well sensitive to this issue,” he said. Outstanding dues to Indian pharmaceutical companies from the sanctions period, estimated at 700 to 800 million dollars, also came up, he added.Beyond energy, Tandon said the focus was on identifying ways for Indian commercial firms to enter the Venezuelan market in areas including mining – gold, diamonds and critical minerals – as well as animal husbandry, transportation, automotive and pharmaceuticals. He said the two sides discussed cooperating in assessing Venezuela’s mineral reserves.Pharmaceuticals were discussed in considerable detail, Tandon said, particularly the supply of high-quality generic drugs at low cost to Venezuela’s public health services. He said the Venezuelan delegation listed this as a priority area, and that Modi directed one of the visiting ministers to be briefed on India’s Janaushadhi scheme.This is Rodriguez’s sixth visit to India, according to the MEA, which recalled her earlier trips as Venezuela’s foreign minister in 2015 and as vice president in 2019, 2023, 2024 and 2025.She is known as a follower of the Indian godman Sathya Sai Baba and visited the Prasanthi Nilayam ashram in Puttaparthi in Andhra Pradesh in 2023 and 2024, according to the Sri Sathya Sai organisation. The MEA declined to comment on the private portion of her programme, though officials confirmed that she would visit several industrial and refining facilities in other Indian cities.