El Callao gold, Venezuela: Heeney signed for 30 years what OFAC will not let it mine

In Houston on September 16, at the G20 energy ministerial, a New York investment firm signed with the Republic of Venezuela and the Corporación Venezolana de Minería a concession to "develop and operate" a gold project in El Callao. Thirty years, up to a billion dollars, and a trading partner, Mercuria. The photo is of a mine changing hands. The papers tell a longer story.

There are three of them on the Chocó mine. The one Heeney signed. The one that lets it act from the United States. And one older than both, dated 2016, still being collected.

Caracas's paper

The concession exists because a law existed five months earlier. The Organic Mining Law, published in Official Gazette 7,020 Extraordinary of April 16, allows mining by private companies authorized by the State — the National Assembly presented it as the framework to attract domestic and foreign investment — and sets the instrument for large-scale mining: the concession, with a term that does not exceed thirty years from its publication in the Gazette, extendable for two periods of up to ten. Heeney's thirty years are not an exception: they are the maximum the law allows.

The same law sets the rest of the terms. The State collects a royalty of up to 13% of gross production, valued at the commercial price of the final product, and a mining tax of up to 6%; the exact rate is set by resolution and by contract. Disputes may go to arbitration under guidelines the ministry issues in consultation with the Attorney General's office. And the gold has a buyer with a preferential right: the Central Bank of Venezuela has five business days to acquire, on market terms, the gold coming out of any mine in the country; if it lets the period lapse, the ministry authorizes sale to third parties, domestic or international.

Of all that, what is known about Chocó is what the firm's release carries: develop and operate, up to a billion, the Republic and the state mining corporation as counterparties. The release carries no term, no royalty and no dispute clause. The thirty years came from coverage of the signing.

Washington's paper

A U.S. company that wants to touch Venezuelan gold moves within two general licenses the Office of Foreign Assets Control replaced on September 2. License 51D authorizes an "established U.S. entity" — organized before January 29, 2025 — to export, sell, buy, store, transport and refine Venezuelan-origin gold, including in dealings with the Government of Venezuela and Minerven, on two conditions: disputes are resolved in the United States, the United Kingdom, France or Singapore, and any payment to a blocked person, other than local taxes and fees, goes into the deposit accounts the U.S. Treasury administers. Coal entered that same license on September 2; how is in the piece on Carbozulia.

And its paragraph (b)(7) says what it does not authorize: "exploration, development, mining, extraction, processing, refining, or production" of minerals in Venezuela, or the formation of entities in the country to do so. What Heeney signed — develop and operate — is what 51D leaves out. It is the same design that governs oil: taking the resource out is authorized, investing needs permission.

Sell, yes. Dig, no.

That is what 55A is for. It authorizes negotiating and entering into "contingent" contracts for new investment in mining, gold included, and defines the term broadly: binding memoranda, agreements in principle, offers. The condition is single and mandatory: performance of any such contract must be "expressly contingent upon separate authorization" from the office. Under that framework, a concession signed in Houston is a contract one can hold, not yet one that can be performed. Heeney's release mentions no license.

There is one more clause, and it is the one that leaves a trail. Whoever exports, sells or buys Venezuelan gold under 51D must send a detailed report on each transaction to the Departments of State and the Interior, dates included. Every ounce that leaves under that license is logged in Washington, deal by deal: a record Caracas does not keep, and one that a third paper, further down, might want to read.

Who is signing

Heeney is not a miner. Its founding partner appeared before a House subcommittee on February 24 as a financier and developer of mineral projects, with a portfolio "totaling approximate assets of $1.2 billion, including nine projects in foreign countries," and with liquidity from an allied bank, Erebor Bank, which he described as understanding the "national security imperative" of the minerals market. Seven months later the firm took Chocó. Its partner in the mine, Mercuria, is a trading house, and that same week it had a shipment of some fifteen thousand tonnes of Venalum aluminium to the United States under way. Who each counterparty of the opening is, and what instrument each holds, is in the counterparty map.

A financier with nine projects abroad and a trader already moving another Venezuelan metal. Neither has operated a gold mine in the country; the mine, by contrast, has already been operated.

The third paper

Coverage of the signing describes the mine as privately operated until 2011, when the Government took it over. The private mine in El Callao that the State took in 2011 was called Chocó 10 and belonged to Canada's Rusoro Mining, owner of 95% of that deposit and half of Isidora. If it is the same mine — and the description matches — what followed sits in an award: on August 22, 2016, an ICSID tribunal ordered Venezuela to pay it US$967.77 million for the expropriation, under the Canada–Venezuela investment treaty.

Venezuela signed a settlement in 2018 to pay more than US$1.28 billion in instalments and did not pay the first, of US$100 million; with interest, the debt exceeded US$2.06 billion at the end of 2024. Collection is being enforced where every collection against Venezuela is enforced: in Delaware, against the shares of Citgo's parent, through the route the alter ego doctrine opened. In November 2025 the court authorized the sale to Amber, and Rusoro is set to receive US$400 million in cash and US$650 million in convertible notes at closing, which still depends on a Venezuelan appeal and on OFAC's own approval. The company warned that this covers its U.S. judgment, about US$650 million short of the award, and that it will keep collecting the rest.

A 2016 award, a 2025 sale and a 2026 concession, on the same ground.

The other expropriated owner

El Callao has already seen the formula now on offer, and the result sits in a public filing. Gold Reserve, the Canadian company that held the Brisas project, obtained in September 2014 an award of US$740 million for its expropriation. In July 2016 it signed with Venezuela a settlement worth some US$1.032 billion — 792 for the award and 240 for its mining data — and, in the same package, a mixed company: Siembra Minera, 55% held by the Corporación Venezolana de Minería and 45% by the company, to develop Brisas and the neighbouring Cristinas.

What it collected was US$254 million: the 240 for the data and 14 on the award. The rest, with interest, now exceeds a billion, and the company stands in the same Delaware queue as Rusoro, with a writ of attachment served on the shares of Citgo's parent since 2024. The mixed company did not produce the mine; it produced one more creditor.

Two of El Callao's gold mines today have their former operator collecting in a U.S. court. The third has just been signed.

What the signer takes away

In order: Caracas grants thirty years on a mine; Washington authorizes selling its gold but not extracting it until there is a specific authorization; and a third party is collecting on that same mine in a Delaware court through the sale of Citgo, in the queue where the district's other expropriated owner already stands. Whoever buys that gold buys all three papers at once.

Two documents would clear the file: the text of the concession, with its royalty and dispute clause, and the OFAC authorization that 55A requires before a shovel moves. Until they appear, the gold output the sector's minister projected in May — twelve tonnes this year, 30% more than 2025's 9.5 — will keep leaving through the usual channel: the state miner and the Central Bank, which the April law has just confirmed as first buyer.