- ENERGÍA
The two drillers that filed with the securities regulator on Tuesday put a date on the return, and it is not this year.
Un taladro adjudicado · arranque en el primer trimestre de 2027 · componentes de otros diez saliendo de Estados Unidos
affects anyone with incremental Orinoco Belt barrels in a 2026 model
- SANCIONES
The license that opened coal and minerals authorizes negotiating and signing the investment; performing it requires another permit, written into the same paragraph.
Licencia general 55A · ejecución supeditada a una autorización separada · fuera los socios de China, Rusia, Irán, Corea del Norte y Cuba
affects anyone structuring entry into gold, coal or iron who needs to know which signature is enforceable
- CONSUMO
The vehicle market grew 70% in eight months and is negotiating 18- to 48-month financing terms with banks.
36.855 vehículos nuevos entre enero y agosto · 70% más que un año antes · 5.999 en agosto
affects anyone selling durable goods in the country who depends on consumer credit existing
The permit arrives before the equipment, and the distance between them is measured in quarters. Nabors wrote off to zero in 2020 what it had left in Venezuela because it could not get it out of the country; the contract it has just signed puts its first rig drilling in early 2027, two quarters later than NABEP promised. In mining the same gap is written into the text: the license authorizes negotiating and signing, and makes performance contingent on another permit that does not yet exist. Anyone setting production targets for this year sets them against someone else's calendar, which pushes them into the next one. The vehicle market, up 70% in eight months, runs on a different engine and waits for neither.
This is what the country has available as a backstop, and it gives the scale of what it can fund on its own. The commitments announced over the past two weeks — operator investment, the equipment arriving from the United States, the credit a neighboring development bank is opening — do not come out of this account, which is why they advance at the pace of whoever supplies them rather than the issuer's. The series stood at US$13.288 billion on August 31, so the September 4 reading captures four days of decline. The next weekly cut will say whether the move is valuation or balance.
Nabors filed on Tuesday a multi-year contract to recommence drilling in Venezuela starting in the first quarter of 2027, and Patterson-UTI closed the sale of components for ten rigs.
Nabors Industries told the U.S. securities regulator on September 8 it had signed a multi-year contract to recommence drilling in Venezuela, and set the awarded rig's start for the first quarter of 2027. The same company wrote off to zero, in the second quarter of 2020, the US$32.6 million it had left in rigs and drilling equipment in the country: no work, sanctions in force and no way to relocate the assets. Patterson-UTI said the same day it had completed the sale of idle components for ten rigs from the United States.
Nabors Industries y Patterson-UTI — formularios ante la SEC ↗Un taladro adjudicado con arranque en el primer trimestre de 2027 · US$32,6 millones amortizados en 2020 · componentes de diez taladros vendidos desde Estados UnidosBetween an awarded rig and a drilling rig lie assembly, certification, transport and crews, and that stretch sets the calendar for new barrels. Nabors operates 178 rigs worldwide and projects closing the year with 98 international units; the Venezuelan one sits in the awarded column, not the operating one. What Patterson-UTI shipped are components, not assembled units. The capacity already installed in the country is what SLB described on August 19: up to fifteen of its rigs, with four before December.
Drillers with idle equipment in the United States: Patterson-UTI turned stranded components into cash without taking operating risk.
Anyone with incremental barrels in a 2026 model: the supplier that has to drill them told a regulator it starts the following year.
INDICADORwhether the active rig count in Venezuela rises before December and whether Nabors states a mobilization date for the awarded rig · Nabors publica resultados del tercer trimestre a finales de octubre; el conteo internacional de taladros se actualiza cada mes
The mining trade body said on Monday that the September 2 licenses do not restart the industry because they do not enable capital injection; the text of 55A confirms it in its first paragraph.
The president of the Venezuelan Mining Chamber, the trade body grouping the sector's companies, argued on Monday that the licenses issued on September 2 do not restart the industry because they aim at buying the finished product and do not enable direct capital injection. The text bears him out: General License 55A authorizes negotiating and entering into contracts for new investment in coal and minerals, including gold, and its explanatory note covers exploring, developing, extracting, processing and forming new joint ventures, with performance of any such contract expressly contingent on separate authorization.
OFAC — Licencia general 55A ↗Licencia general 55A del 2-sep-2026 · ejecución supeditada a autorización separada · comprador constituido antes del 29-ene-2025 en la 51DA contingent contract serves to lock in price, partner and perimeter ahead of a competitor; it does not serve to disburse. The difference decides what reaches an investment committee: a firm obligation needs the suspensive condition to have a way of being resolved, and here that way is a permit requested case by case. The sister license, 51D, does authorize buying and exporting the mineral.
The buyer already organized in the United States before January 29, 2025, who can close and ship today under 51D.
The operator that needs capital to produce rather than a buyer to sell: direct injection still requires a permit requested one at a time. And any structure with a Chinese or Russian partner, excluded by the counterparty's country.
INDICADORwhether the first specific license enabling performance of one of those contingent contracts appears, and in which mineral · la licencia general 55A rige desde el 2 de septiembre y sustituyó a la versión de marzo; las acciones de esa oficina se publican el mismo día en que se firman
Cavenez reported on Tuesday that 36,855 new vehicles were sold between January and August, 70% more than a year earlier, and that an 18- to 48-month financing scheme is advancing with banks.
Cavenez, the chamber grouping the country's vehicle assemblers and importers, reported on Tuesday that 36,855 new units were sold in the domestic market between January and August, 70% more than in the same period a year earlier. August sales came to 5,999. Of the total, 68.3% were passenger models and 31.7% commercial units. The chamber keeps its 50,000-unit target for 2026, the same one set at the start of the year, and said talks with banks had advanced toward financing terms of 18 to 48 months.
Cavenez — vía Finanzas Digital ↗36.855 unidades entre enero y agosto · 70% interanual · 5.999 en agosto · 68,3% pasajeros y 31,7% comerciales · meta de 50.000 para 2026A cash market is capped by available savings; one with terms is capped by the monthly payment. Moving from paying for a vehicle outright to paying over forty-eight months multiplies the pool of buyers without income changing. The constraint sits on the other side: the term is granted in bolivars and the price referenced in hard currency, and with the official rate at Bs 820.10 per dollar the payment reprices on its own.
Dealers and importers, which stop competing only for buyers holding the full amount. And banks, which gain an asset with real collateral.
Whoever signs at 48 months with bolivar income and a hard-currency-referenced price: every point of official-rate slippage lands on the payment.
INDICADORwhether any bank publishes auto lending terms with stated tenor, rate and reference currency, and whether the monthly pace sustains the target · la cámara publica su cifra mensual en los primeros días del mes siguiente; quedan cuatro meses de 2026
HOW OUR CALLS ARE DOING
indicators we issued in earlier editionsOn September 2 we set as indicator whether the first letter of credit would be issued and which Venezuelan bank would issue it.
The name came before the issuance. The head of Colombia's development bank identified Banco Nacional de Crédito, Provincial and Exterior as correspondents, and placed Banesco and Mercantil as pending. The one-to-two-week window he himself set on September 1 came due on the 8th, and none of the three has stated the first instrument was issued. Half an answer: it is known who can issue, not that anyone has.