- ENERGÍA
Chevron will carry out its Orinoco Belt expansion with the cash its three Venezuelan joint ventures generate, with no outside capital. Its September 2 release had already set the plan's size and its cost per barrel.
Más de US$7.000 millones en cinco años · producción hacia unos 600.000 barriles diarios · costo total declarado bajo US$20 por barril
affects anyone modeling Venezuela's oil recovery off announced investment commitments
- METALES
Glencore and Mercuria are separately negotiating with the government to operate Venalum, the country's largest aluminum smelter, and to secure access to the metal it produces. Neither produces aluminum: both are traders.
Capacidad instalada de unas 430.000 toneladas anuales · dos conversaciones separadas · sin instrumento firmado ni confirmación de las partes
affects contractors in Puerto Ordaz and anyone buying primary aluminum in the region
- COMERCIO
The United States again bought more crude from Venezuela than from Saudi Arabia in the week ended September 4. It is that market's second-largest supplier, behind Canada, for a twentieth straight week.
599.000 barriles diarios en la última semana · 1,7 veces el envío saudita · unos 108 millones de barriles acumulados en 2026
affects Gulf Coast refiners configured for heavy crude, and anyone calculating the quarter's hard-currency revenue
The entry price to Venezuelan assets is being paid in product, not in capital. Chevron will raise what Carabobo costs from the cash its operating joint ventures generate, and the cost it declares — under $20 a barrel, against a Merey that averaged $76.82 in August — explains why it need bring nothing in from outside. In Puerto Ordaz, what Glencore and Mercuria are putting on the table for Venalum is access to the aluminum, not an injection into the plant. And the buyer is already seated: the U.S. energy agency has recorded Venezuela as its market's second-largest supplier since April. Whoever funds this collects in merchandise, and that shifts the risk off the operator's balance sheet and onto the product's price. If Merey eases, the pace slows on its own, with no board and no announcement.
↳ Friday's exchange rate governs today as well, so the jump the central bank already set is not charged until tomorrow.
↳ A 1.17% move in a single step on a month already up 4.7% in eleven days: anyone billing in bolivars and paying for imports reprices today.
↳ The first round, August 6 to 12, closed with an agreement on fully renewing the Supreme Court. This round is where it gets measured whether that agreement produces an act published in the official gazette.
↳ It is the home-grown aggregate that sets the real size of the room the state has to negotiate with, and the only one updated weekly.
What mills are paying per kilo of paddy rice in the current harvest, according to the sector's associations.
This is what rice growers are getting this harvest, and it arrives without a contract. Fevearroz stated on September 11 that farmers deliver without knowing the final price and that each company sets payment terms; the associations hold that at this level production cost is not covered. The comparison with the rest of the edition makes itself: Chevron told shareholders a cost per barrel and obtained improved fiscal terms, and two trading houses are discussing aluminum access before signing anything. The food producer is the only one who delivers first and asks afterward.
Chevron's chief executive on Friday placed the origin of the money that will pay for its Venezuelan expansion: whatever cash the three already-operating joint ventures generate, with nothing from outside.
Mike Wirth specified on Friday the 11th, at the University of Texas at Austin energy symposium, that Chevron's Venezuelan expansion will run within whatever cash its three joint ventures can generate, with no outside capital. The size had been set by the company's September 2 release: more than $7 billion over five years, production toward some 600,000 barrels a day, total cost below $20 a barrel, and the Carabobo-1 and Carabobo-2-South-A areas assigned to Petroindependencia, in which its subsidiary holds 49%.
Chevron — vía Bloomberg ↗Más de US$7.000 millones en cinco años · ~600.000 barriles diarios · costo total declarado bajo US$20/bbl · Merey de agosto en US$76,82 · las tres mixtas +15% en el añoWhat pays for the work is the distance between the cost the company declares and the price at which it places the barrel: Merey averaged $76.82 in August per OPEC's monthly report. So the expansion neither competes for capital inside the portfolio nor waits on an authorization to inject funds, and it self-liquidates off the current barrel. The three ventures have already grown output 15% this year.
Chevron, which adds two areas without committing balance sheet. The treasury accrues more royalty on rising volume, though the collection does not enter its accounts.
The operator with no producing barrels to fund itself from: GeoPark declared up to 120 days for its effective date at Bare and the first Nabors rig starts in 2027.
INDICADORwhether Chevron states a Venezuela investment figure in its third-quarter results, and whether Merey's monthly average holds above August's level · Chevron publica resultados del tercer trimestre a finales de octubre; el informe mensual de la OPEP sale alrededor del día 12 de cada mes
Two commodity traders, neither an aluminum producer, are separately discussing with the government taking over the Puerto Ordaz smelter and securing the metal that comes out of it.
Glencore and Mercuria Energy Group are exploring a deal for Venalum, the country's largest aluminum smelter, per Bloomberg on September 11, which attributes it to people familiar with the talks: there is no official act and no confirmation from the companies or from the Corporación Venezolana de Guayana, the state holding that runs the plant. What is under discussion is taking over operations and gaining access to the metal it produces, with no structure settled. The smelter sits in Puerto Ordaz, Bolívar state, next to hydroelectric generation and bauxite reserves, with installed capacity of about 430,000 tons a year.
Bloomberg — personas conocedoras de las conversaciones ↗Capacidad instalada de unas 430.000 toneladas anuales · dos conversaciones separadas · Mercuria con Heeney Capital · sin instrumento firmado ni confirmación de las partesThe consideration under discussion is not a stake in the plant but the metal's offtake — the same architecture by which January's hydrocarbons law pays the oil operator a percentage of fiscalized barrels. Venalum fits that mold because the input that sank its output — firm power — and the raw material sit beside the furnace, so a tonnage buyer need not finance the grid. Each recovered point of utilization is about 4,300 tons a year.
Glencore and Mercuria, which would lock in primary aluminum tonnage without buying the plant, and Puerto Ordaz contractors and suppliers if operations restart.
The state corporation, if the scheme is signed this way: it keeps the asset and its labor liability while ceding operations and the metal's offtake. And the regional primary-aluminum buyer that today negotiates without an intermediary.
INDICADORwhether a signed instrument with a stated investment amount and term appears, and whether the state corporation or either company confirms the talks through its own channel · la información es del 11 de septiembre y ninguna de las partes la ha confirmado; Glencore reporta a sus accionistas en el calendario semestral y la estatal no tiene calendario de divulgación
The U.S. energy agency's weekly series leaves Venezuela as the U.S. market's second-largest crude supplier in the week to September 4, above both Saudi and Mexican volumes.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration recorded 599,000 barrels a day of Venezuelan crude in the week ended September 4, against Saudi Arabia's 347,000 and Mexico's 297,000. It is the twentieth consecutive week in second place behind Canada; the run starts in the week ended April 24, when it displaced Saudi crude. Across the 36 weeks of 2026 the average is around 429,000 barrels a day against some 142,000 in the same stretch of 2025.
EIA — Administración de Información Energética de EE. UU. ↗Segundo proveedor de EE. UU. por vigésima semana consecutiva · 599.000 b/d contra 347.000 de Arabia Saudita · promedio 2026 de ~429.000 b/d · ~108 millones de barriles acumulados · serie al 4-sepA buyer of that size stops being merely revenue and becomes a political cost for anyone who wants to shut the tap. The same series shows zero imports from Saudi Arabia in five weeks of July, so Venezuela's second place does not rest on one isolated soft month from the competitor. And the crude entering there is heavy: it requires diluent blending and refineries configured to process it, so replacing it costs margin and is not resolved in a week.
The Gulf Coast refiner configured for heavy crude, which locks in a short-haul barrel. Venezuela accrues on every cargo; for the buyer to stay clear of sanctions, that payment goes into U.S. Treasury deposit accounts.
Saudi Arabia, which gave up second place in that market, and anyone whose model assumes a quick return to the 2019 restrictions regime.
INDICADORwhether the reading for the week ended September 11 keeps shipments above 500,000 barrels a day, and whether the second-place run reaches twenty-two weeks · la agencia publica el reporte semanal de petróleo los miércoles a las 10:30 del este; el próximo cubre la semana cerrada el 11 de septiembre
HOW OUR CALLS ARE DOING
indicators we issued in earlier editionsWhether the first eleven days of September's currency pace would hold through the month's second half.
That same Friday the 11th the central bank set the rate with value date Tuesday the 15th at 842.2067 bolivars per dollar, 9.72 above that Friday's. A single 1.17% step against the 4.7% the previous eleven days had accumulated: entering the second half of the month, the pace did not ease.