Venezuela upstream October 2026: Merey made the quarter that production did not
Venezuela reported 1,206,000 barrels a day to OPEC for September, 5,000 more than in August, while Merey rose $16.93 to $93.75. PDVSA counts 61 signed agreements, and the first start-up declared to a regulator points to the end of 2026.
Venezuela reported output of 1,206,000 barrels a day to OPEC for September, 5,000 more than in August. Over the same quarter, Merey, the country’s heavy benchmark crude, went from $67.36 to $93.75 a barrel. September sums it up in dollars. Exports, measured with tanker-tracking data, fell from 1.19 million to 1.08 million barrels a day; valued at Merey, they rose from about $91 million to about $101 million a day, by our own calculation. Price added more than volume took away.
The independent measurements tell the same story with different numbers. OPEC’s secondary sources, which do not take the government’s figure, put September at 1.15 million barrels a day, against 1.13 million in August. The IEA estimated 1.16 million in both months and added what the other series do not publish: it assigns Venezuela a sustainable capacity of 1.12 million barrels a day and spare capacity of zero.
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FURTHER READING
04Venezuelan crude halves its discount to Brent in two months
In July, the Venezuelan benchmark sold $16.61 below Brent; in September, $8.27. With output nearly flat, the month's gain came from price.
Venezuela Upstream July 2026: LOH Regulation drops PDVSA (Gaceta 7,052), Repsol signs Horcón MoU, OFAC amends GL 46C-54A, Brent normalizes to $81
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Gas in Venezuela: the country flares more than twice what Perla delivers
Perla, the Eni and Repsol field, covers a third of the domestic market with the country's most expensive gas and is paid by PDVSA in crude. PDVSA Gas says supply is guaranteed; Repsol says the country should not depend on Cardón IV. Meanwhile, the World Bank estimates Venezuela flared 13.5 billion cubic meters in 2025.
GL 46E — Trade in Venezuelan-Origin Oil and Petrochemical Products
Authorizes an established U.S. entity to lift, export, sell, store, transport and refine Venezuelan-origin oil —and to import Venezuelan-origin petrochemical products into the U.S.— in transactions involving the Government of Venezuela and PdVSA. As of September 28, 2026, the petrochemical annex lists methanol; until then it listed only fertilizers and their inputs. Contracts must route disputes to the U.S., U.K., France, or Singapore, and payments to blocked persons go to the Treasury account. Supersedes GL 46D.
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