Venezuela's acting President Delcy Rodriguez will be on a five-day official working visit to India beginning Wednesday, New Delhi announced on Tuesday, days after US secretary of state Marco Rubio said she would do so.

Rodriguez is supposed to attend the deferred first International Big Cat Alliance Summit. The event is now scheduled to be held in New Delhi this week.

Energy cooperation is expected to be top of the agenda since the visit comes in the wake of India increasing oil purchases from Venezuela after cutting back in 2017 following the sanctions imposed on Venezuelan oil by Donald Trump in his first term as US President. With Venezuelan oil now coming under US control following the ouster of former President Nicolas Maduro, the Trump administration has been nudging India to buy from Venezuela.

Trump had on January 31 claimed that India had signed a deal to buy Venezuelan oil. "India is coming in, and they're going to be buying Venezuelan oil as opposed to buying it from Iran. So we've already made that deal, the concept of the deal," Trump told reporters in January. While India is yet to confirm a deal, the external affairs ministry has since February been maintaining that New Delhi is open to "exploring the commercial merits of any crude supply options, including from Venezuela".

The process was hastened by the Iran-Israel-US conflict. Venezuela has become a major supplier to India, having had a negligible presence at the beginning of the year. In April, shipments stood at 2,83,000 barrels per day (BPD), the highest since 2020. It is projected to rise to 3,80,000 BPD in June.

The Venezuelan delegation will visit sites connected with energy, pharmaceuticals and auto sectors to gain insights into India's technological and industrial capabilities and explore opportunities for collaboration, the ministry said.