- ENERGÍA
PDVSA and TotalEnergies E&P New Ventures signed a hydrocarbons cooperation memorandum at Miraflores, with no fields, amounts or timetable disclosed.
Firmado el sábado 19-sep · firmantes: Héctor Obregón y Francisco Javier Rielo · anexo de la GL 50C: seis compañías, sin cambios desde junio
affects anyone counting announced commitments as if they were contracts under way
- INSTITUCIONAL
The September 15 Official Gazette reformed article 65 of the Supreme Court's Organic Law and ordered the appointment of every principal and alternate justice.
Gaceta 7.074 Extraordinario · comité de 23 miembros aprobado por dos tercios de la plenaria · 11 diputados y 12 de otros sectores · mandato de dos años
affects local suppliers, contractors and employers, who have no forum outside Venezuela
- FINANZAS
The estimated dollar supply for September came in below what the non-oil import bill requires as a minimum.
US$1.400 millones ofrecidos frente a US$1.500 millones de mínimo declarado · cobertura de 93% · encaje mínimo de 73% vigente desde el 15-sep
affects the importer financing inventory with bolivar-denominated credit
Venezuela signed on Saturday with the French oil company that handed back its Petrocedeño stake five years ago, and no fields, amounts or timetable were disclosed. The US permission that names operators one by one has stood at six companies since June, and TotalEnergies is not among them: that annex is the route by which a non-US company comes to operate Venezuelan crude with express authorization. Inside the country, the week left two things any such contract would meet on arrival. The court that interprets the law began replacing itself entirely, by order of the September 15 Gazette. And the central bank put roughly a hundred million dollars less into the market this month than the minimum import bill requires. A seventh name in that annex would be October's signal.
↳ The rate has moved roughly one bolivar per business day since Wednesday the 16th; anyone quoting at thirty days carries that pace.
↳ It is the first contact between a US president and whoever heads the Venezuelan executive in more than eleven years. A sideline greeting leaves no record: what counts is whatever appears in writing afterward.
↳ The series has run twenty-one weeks with Venezuela ahead of Saudi Arabia; this cut says whether the streak reaches twenty-two.
↳ It is the first date against which to measure the September 15 judicial reform: either the Assembly appoints the eleven-deputy commission and publishes the call for nominations, or the round closes with no act of execution.
↳ The list is provisional until the session. That speech is the only thing from the New York week that stays in writing.
↳ The September 16 cut left reserves at $12,988 million, the cushion against which an import bill that was not fully covered this month is measured.
The highest electricity demand recorded in Venezuela in nine years, reached on Friday, September 18.
This is demand, not supply. The ministry reported the peak and asked for conservation; it did not publish how much was generated that day. The distance between those two numbers decides whether a new field can lift production, because pumping in the Orinoco Belt runs on electricity. In August, 4,800 megawatts of thermal generation were announced for the rest of 2026, with no published timetable. License 48C authorizes supplying goods and services to generate electricity and, in the same text, prohibits forming new joint ventures to do so: the equipment can be sold, the company that would operate it cannot be set up.
Héctor Obregón, for Petróleos de Venezuela, and Francisco Javier Rielo, for TotalEnergies, signed a hydrocarbons cooperation memorandum at Miraflores on Saturday the 19th, with no fields or amounts disclosed.
The document was signed on Saturday, September 19, at Miraflores Palace in Caracas. The signatories were Héctor Obregón, president of Petróleos de Venezuela, and Francisco Javier Rielo, senior vice president for the Americas at TotalEnergies; the counterparty is TotalEnergies E&P New Ventures, the group's exploration and new business arm. Acting President Delcy Rodríguez presided, alongside Hydrocarbons Minister Paula Henao. The signing was announced without disclosing fields, amounts or a timetable. TotalEnergies handed PDVSA its 30.32% of Petrocedeño in July 2021.
PDVSA y TotalEnergies — vía Radio Miraflores ↗Firmado el 19-sep en Miraflores · contraparte: TotalEnergies E&P New Ventures · anexo de la GL 50C: seis compañías, sin cambios desde junio · ni campos, ni monto, ni plazo divulgadosWhat an operator can do in Venezuela is bounded by the instrument that authorizes it. General License 50C names six companies —BP, Chevron, Eni, Maurel & Prom, Repsol and Shell— and has not added one since June. GL 52C reaches the established US entity incorporated on or before January 29, 2025, which a French parent is not. What was signed on Saturday states no field, amount or term; a production participation contract fixes all three.
The six in the annex. While the list stays put, they hold a position no third party can occupy by contract.
TotalEnergies, which leaves Miraflores with a document naming no field, amount or term. And the oilfield service firm sizing capacity against announcements: between the memorandum and a purchase order a contract is missing, and neither party has announced one.
INDICADORA seventh company appearing in the annex to General License 50, or PDVSA or TotalEnergies announcing a contract with a field, an amount and a term. · El anexo se revisa con cada reemisión de la licencia; la última fue la 50C del 27 de agosto de 2026. La próxima acción de la Oficina de Control de Activos Extranjeros sobre Venezuela es el punto de observación.
Official Gazette 7,074 Extraordinary of September 15 reformed article 65 of the Supreme Court's Organic Law and orders the appointment of every principal and alternate justice.
The text was published on Tuesday, September 15, and took effect the same day. Its sole transitional provision orders the National Assembly to appoint the Judicial Nominations Committee to begin appointing every principal and alternate justice of the Supreme Court. The reformed article 65 sets that committee at twenty-three members approved by two thirds of the plenary: eleven deputies and twelve nominated by other sectors of society.
Gaceta Oficial de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela ↗Gaceta Oficial 7.074 Extraordinario del 15-sep-2026 · comité de 23 miembros: 11 diputados y 12 de otros sectores · dos tercios de la plenaria · mandato del comité: dos añosContracts signed under the US licenses take their disputes to the United States, the United Kingdom, France or Singapore; the condition is written into licenses 48C, 50C and 52C, and it leaves the Venezuelan court outside that circuit. Everything else runs through it: taxes, customs, labor matters and who may validly act for a public entity. Replacing the entire bench changes the interpreter of those matters without changing a line of the law that applies, and the committee that picks it is approved by two thirds of the plenary.
The foreign operator that already signed under a US license: its contract is litigated abroad and the bench's composition does not reach it.
Local suppliers, contractors and employers, who have no alternative forum. Until the twenty-three-member committee is appointed, who will interpret their contracts is unknown.
INDICADORThe National Assembly appointing the eleven-deputy Preliminary Commission and publishing the call for nominations on its website and, at least three times, in three national newspapers, as article 65 requires. · La disposición transitoria no fija plazo: corre desde la publicación del 15 de septiembre. La mesa de diálogo sesiona hasta el miércoles 23 de septiembre.
On September 17 the firm Ecoanalítica put the month's dollar injection at $1.4 billion, against the $1.5 billion minimum that non-oil imports require.
The consultancy published its estimate of September's dollar supply on Thursday the 17th: about $1.4 billion. That is 45% less than in July. The minimum demand it states for non-oil imports is $1.5 billion a month, so what is on offer covers 93% of that floor. The calculation lands two days after the central bank's new reserve requirement took effect, at a 73% minimum on certain obligations.
Ecoanalítica — vía Descifrado ↗Oferta estimada de septiembre: US$1.400 millones · mínimo declarado para importaciones no petroleras: US$1.500 millones · cobertura: 93% · encaje mínimo vigente desde el 15-sep: 73%Whoever bills in bolivars and buys abroad is supplied at the central bank's currency desk. If that desk delivers 93% of what the minimum bill requires, the rest is obtained at another price and enters the cost of the imported good. The reserve requirement operates one step earlier: it pulls bolivars out of the bank, and a smaller money stock presses less on the exchange rate, at the price of shrinking what the bank can lend.
The importer with an external credit line or its own dollar cash, which does not depend on the desk to restock.
The importer buying inventory with bolivar credit. Since Tuesday the 15th commercial credit has 16% a year as a floor and no longer has a ceiling, and the share of dollars the desk does not cover is paid for at another price.
INDICADORWhether October's dollar supply returns to the third quarter's average, and whether the official rate holds the pace of roughly one bolivar per business day it has run since Wednesday the 16th. · El banco central publica el tipo de cambio cada día hábil y el corte semanal de reservas internacionales los viernes; el próximo es el 25 de septiembre.
HOW OUR CALLS ARE DOING
indicators we issued in earlier editionsWhether the August 12 mandate on the Bank of England assets produces any filing in the English case.
On September 18 a near-deal was reported to move some 31 tonnes of gold, around $4 billion, from the Bank of England to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, granting the acting president legal control without immediate sale. There is no signed document and no official act by either party, and the English bank is still awaiting a court order identifying who may instruct the account.
The first contract signed under GL 52C and the office held by whoever signs for the state company.
The office was answered on Saturday the 19th: Petróleos de Venezuela was signed for by its president, Héctor Obregón, at Miraflores. The contract the indicator sought was not: GL 52C governs contracts with established US entities, and here the counterparty is French and the instrument a memorandum.