The largest energy resource Venezuela has left is being structured as an export business, and the plant that turns it into a product sits on the other side of the border.
- ENERGÍA
Venezuela awards the second phase of its largest gas field to BP, the UAE's XRG and Qatar's UCC, and PDVSA Gas transfers interest in the licence to them.
13-ago · licencia de la fase II del campo Loran · más de 4 billones de pies cúbicos de gas probado · participaciones iguales entre las tres · porcentaje del Estado no publicado
affects anyone weighing entry into Venezuelan gas who needs to know who shares the licence
- MACRO
July's price index accelerates and the Central Bank attributes it to the June earthquake doublet's effect on goods distribution.
12-ago · índice de precios de julio en 19,9% mensual · 13,8% en junio · 175,7% acumulado en siete meses · la mayor variación desde enero
affects anyone setting prices in bolívares or paying a local payroll
- FINANZAS
CITGO reports its best quarter in a year and sharply raises the cash projection with which it will close 2026.
13-ago · US$936 millones de utilidad en el segundo trimestre · 820.000 barriles diarios procesados · caja proyectada de unos US$5.700 millones a fin de año
affects creditors paid from the court sale of the parent, and anyone tracking that auction
The margin Venezuelan crude leaves is booked in the United States, and the gas signed this week will be processed where a plant already exists: Trinidad. CITGO earned US$936 million in a quarter refining in Louisiana, Texas and Illinois, and Loran is aimed at feeding liquefaction trains Venezuela never built. In both cases the country supplies the resource and not the facility that turns it into a sellable product, which is where the margin stays. July's price index runs on a separate track and is worth reading apart: it answers to domestic costs and the exchange rate, not to what gets signed abroad. In the coming weeks the missing datum is a percentage: whether the definitive Loran agreement publishes how much the state retains, or whether the licence lands with no figure.
On August 13 Venezuela awarded the licence for the second phase of the Loran gas field to BP, the UAE's XRG and Qatar's UCC, with equal interests and a transfer of PDVSA Gas's share.
Acting president Delcy Rodríguez signed the second-phase agreements for the Loran field, on the Deltana Platform, in Caracas on August 13, with BP Exploration Caribbean, XRG —the international arm of Abu Dhabi's state oil company— and UCC Oil and Gas Holding. Hydrocarbons minister Paula Henao and PDVSA Gas president Javier Viloria attended. XRG stated that the licence contains over 4 trillion cubic feet of proven gas resources and that the three will hold equal interests, subject to regulatory approvals and to applicable international sanctions.
XRG (ADNOC) / PDVSA Gas ↗13-ago · fase II de Loran, Plataforma Deltana · BP (Reino Unido), XRG (EAU), UCC (Qatar) · más de 4 billones de pies cúbicos probados · participaciones iguales · porcentaje del Estado no publicadoLoran forms part of the Loran-Manatee accumulation, which straddles the maritime boundary with Trinidad and Tobago, and had gone 23 years without development by the executive's own account. Venezuela has no operating liquefaction plant; Trinidad does, and its own runs below capacity for lack of gas. The resource sits on one side of the line and the facility that makes it exportable on the other.
Trinidad and Tobago and the operators of its liquefaction complex: the gas they lack comes from the Venezuelan side without their having to build anything. Also BP, which already operates in Trinidadian waters.
PDVSA Gas, which exits the licence over its own field with no disclosure of what it retains, and the Venezuelan industrial consumer, whose supply appears in no known document of the agreement.
INDICADORwhether the definitive licence agreement publishes the share the Venezuelan state retains and whether it carries any domestic-supply obligation · en los meses posteriores a la firma del 13 de agosto de 2026; el hito verificable es la publicación de la licencia definitiva en Gaceta Oficial
The Central Bank published July's index on August 12: 19.9% monthly against 13.8% in June. It is the year's second-highest reading, after January's 32.6%, and leaves the seven-month cumulative at 175.7%.
The Central Bank of Venezuela published July's National Consumer Price Index on August 12, with a monthly change of 19.9%. June had been 13.8% and May, 6.3%. The first seven months' cumulative stands at 175.7%, and the twelve-month change at around 577%. The issuing institute attributed the acceleration to the June 24 earthquake doublet's effect on goods distribution, and projected a decline for August.
BCV ↗12-ago · índice de precios de julio 19,9% mensual · 13,8% en junio · 6,3% en mayo · 32,6% en enero · 175,7% acumulado en siete meses · en torno a 577% en doce mesesThe official exchange rate rose 19.84% through July, a pace almost identical to that of prices in the same month. In an economy that imports the bulk of what it sells, exchange-rate pass-through is the usual channel. The earthquake did disrupt distribution routes: July's reading arrives with both pressures at once, and the Central Bank did not break out how much each weighs.
The fixed-rate bolívar borrower and the exporter who collects in hard currency and pays local costs: 19.9% in a month dilutes liabilities and payroll in local currency.
The retailer who invoices in bolívares while restocking in dollars, and the public employee, whose income does not adjust at the index's pace.
INDICADORwhether August's index returns to June's range once distribution normalizes, or holds above 15% with the official rate still rising · hacia mediados de septiembre de 2026, cuando el Banco Central publica el dato de agosto
The refiner reported US$936 million of net income for the second quarter on August 13 and raised its year-end cash projection to some US$5.7 billion, from the US$3.5 to US$3.9 billion it gave in May.
CITGO Petroleum reported net income of US$936 million for the second quarter on August 13. In the same quarter of 2025 it had earned US$100 million. EBITDA for the period was US$1.38 billion and liquidity at the close, US$2.9 billion. Its three refineries processed 820,000 barrels a day, at a 97% crude utilization rate. The company raised its full-year 2026 EBITDA projection to some US$5.8 billion and its year-end cash projection to some US$5.7 billion. It also approved a US$10 million donation over the earthquake.
CITGO ↗13-ago · utilidad neta de US$936M en el 2T · US$100M en el 2T de 2025 · Ebitda de US$1.380M · 820.000 b/d procesados · utilización de crudo 97% · caja proyectada de ~US$5.700M a cierre de 2026The result does not come from volume: throughput fell from the previous quarter's 851,000 barrels a day on turnarounds and unplanned outages. It comes from U.S. refining margins, widened by supply disruptions in other markets. That margin accrues inside a company whose parent, PDV Holding, has had a buyer approved by a Delaware court since December 2025, with closing pending a Treasury licence.
Creditors paid from the auction's proceeds: the price was set at US$5.9 billion in December 2025 and the subsidiary's projected cash was revised upward eight months later.
Venezuela as PDV Holding's ultimate shareholder: it hands over a parent whose main subsidiary raised by some US$1.8 billion the top of the cash projection it gave in May.
INDICADORwhether the U.S. Treasury issues the specific licence still needed to execute the PDV Holding sale, and whether the approved price is adjusted for results posted after December · el cierre está previsto dentro de 2026; no hay fecha publicada para la decisión de licencia
The Maracaibo Chamber of Commerce surveyed 1,872 establishments on the city's main roads: 62% operate and 38% are shut. Electricity and water head the reported failures, and 55% of the companies surveyed have no generator of their own. In the same quarter, commercial-sector employment rose 7.09%.
The number measures what no national statistic captures: how many points of sale stopped operating in the country's second city. The cause companies report is not demand —sector employment rose in the quarter— but utilities, and the 55% with no generator are exposed each time rationing widens. For anyone assessing distribution in western Venezuela, the variable to model is not the customer's purchasing power but power availability at the point of sale. It is the same input whose offshore development has just been structured looking outward.
Maiquetía airport enters its pilot phase on Monday: five days testing the check-in flows that decide whether the August 24 commercial reopening holds or slips again. It is the first operational measure of how far the coastal infrastructure has recovered since June. Friday brings the Central Bank weekly reserves cut, with the official rate still rising. The two files that move larger figures advance off that calendar: the definitive Loran licence, which has to put in writing what the August 13 agreement left stated, and the U.S. Treasury licence without which the sale of CITGO parent cannot be executed. Neither has a published date; in both, the next step is a document.
- →Del 17 al 21 de agosto — Pilot operations phase at Maiquetía airport — tests the check-in flows that decide whether the August 24 commercial reopening holds
- →Viernes 21 de agosto — Central Bank weekly international reserves cut — shows whether the balance holds around US$13.2 billion with the official rate still rising
- →horizonte abierto — ▸ Open thread · definitive Loran licence and Treasury licence for the PDV Holding sale — neither has a published date and both condition already-announced transactions