OIL MAJOR · LEADING FOREIGN OPERATOR
Chevron
Chevron is the leading foreign operator in Venezuela, running joint ventures with PDVSA under OFAC authorization. Its license and volumes work as a gauge of how open the oil sector actually is.
VE Pulses
09Venezuela draws foreign investment but still doesn't control the conditions to sustain it
Foreign interest in Venezuela's opening already draws heavyweight names like General Electric; what still lags are the conditions to sustain it —a credible judicial arbiter and the execution that turns memoranda into megawatts.
Washington rewrites the rules of Venezuela's oil and gold into a single framework, with an explicit veto on Chinese capital
The opening is no longer a collection of permits but a regime: wider than ever, administered in Washington and revocable with a single signature.
Venezuela widens its economic opening on several fronts as inflation falls to 6.3%, a 19-month low
The week opens with Venezuela widening its economic opening —contracts, the power grid and non-oil exports—; the question is how much is structure and how much still depends on the Executive's permits.
The State prepares to offer its assets through the Caracas Stock Exchange as global investment banks and the IMF move closer to Venezuela
The institutional capital and the mechanism to sell it state assets advance fast; the judicial arbiter that would give those contracts certainty is being recomposed this week with no guarantees of independence.
The top U.S. military officer lands in Caracas to back the transition, a Nasdaq SPAC lines up US$2.25 billion and the PDVSA-Crypto trial stays stuck
Venezuela's transition gains its strongest guarantee —the highest-ranking U.S. soldier in Caracas— and draws capital, but the money answering is still speculative and the institutions that should sustain it still do not work.
Venezuela opens its power sector to private capital, sends Rodríguez to India for petrodollars and hires lawyers for its defaulted debt
Venezuela sells its oil at the fastest pace in years, yet opens to private capital the electricity it cannot sustain, seeks capital in India and adds lawyers to its debt rework: the flow grows, the capital to run it does not appear.
Exxon sits with the U.S. Embassy in Caracas, Venezuela goes to Houston for inputs and Darren Woods crosses Canadian heavy oil data with the Faja
Exxon stops being a rumor and turns into bilateral meetings and operational engineering, Saudi Arabia cedes its Indian share and Caracas opens a Drilling School — three movements that fix the upstream timeline.
The TSJ is being redesigned in 11 days, Chevron prepares +50% at Petropiar over two years and the BCV consolidates the third consecutive month of intervention above US$1.0 billion
The court that arbitrates contracts under the new Hydrocarbons Law opens applications until June 6; Chevron enables digital channel for Venezuelan suppliers in its Orinoco footprint; the BCV executed US$1.35B intervention in May across twenty universal banks. Abroad, Washington announces a trip of the acting president to India that Caracas has not yet confirmed.
Chevron at 49%: first binding major expansion in the Rodríguez era
The Petroindependencia deal consolidates the heavy crude bet as the opposition formalizes its demand for a new electoral body and elections
Analysis
03Chevron at 49%: the volume play reshaping the Orinoco Belt
Chevron raised its stake in Petroindependencia to the legal ceiling of 49% and secured Block Ayacucho 8 rights in exchange for surrendering all offshore gas assets and its Maracaibo position. First binding expansion by a major under the Rodríguez administration.
Las majors petroleras dicen lo que Washington no quiere escuchar: la reforma venezolana es «lamentablemente inadecuada»
Verdict: FAVORABLE · Favorable outlook. At CERAWeek Houston, the CEOs of ConocoPhillips and Chevron — the two most important companies for Venezuela's oil future — publicly stated that OFAC licenses are not enough. They need fiscal reform, legal certainty, and a debt repayment plan. Licenses open the door; the local framework determines if anyone walks through it.
GL 50A: The named license — 6 majors authorized for unrestricted operations in Venezuela's oil sector
OFAC named six companies in an annex: Chevron, BP, Eni, Repsol, Shell, and Maurel & Prom. For these companies and their subsidiaries, GL 50A authorizes all transactions related to oil and gas operations in Venezuela.
Sector Briefs
04Chevron Q1 revela 1–2% del CFO (cash flow operativo) en Venezuela; producción cruza 1.23M bpd y GL 5W señala coordinación con Citgo
Brief VE-ENERGY-UPSTREAM mayo 2026. El upstream entra en fase de ejecución contractual: exportaciones cruzan 1.23M bpd en abril (máximo en 7 años, +14% intermensual), Chevron en su call Q1 (1 may) confirma Venezuela = 1–2% del CFO (cash flow operativo) con cuenta por cobrar de $1.5B en amortización a 2027 y sin compromiso de capex incremental antes de clarificación fiscal. GL 5W (4 may) extiende protección bono PDVSA 2020 hasta 19 jun — extensión más corta en dos años, señal de coordinación Treasury con proceso judicial Citgo en Delaware. Repsol Petroquiriquire, Eni Junín-5 y Maurel & Prom operativos bajo GL 50A.
Production crosses 1 million bpd and majors sign: upstream closes Q1 with complete framework and binding power ceiling
VE-ENERGY-UPSTREAM April 2026 brief. Hydrocarbons reform passed (Jan 29), OFAC GL 52 (Mar 18), formal returns from Eni, Repsol and Chevron in April. Production 1.095M bpd, exports >1M for the first time in 6 months. India overtakes China as top buyer at 343K bpd. Revenues channeled to U.S. Treasury custody via EO 14373. The binding ceiling remains electrical (covered in VE-ENERGY-DOMESTICO).
Venezuelan power sector: $15–40B to light up a country Siemens and GE already inspected
VE-ENERGY April brief. GL 48A active, Wright in February, Siemens/GE inspections in March, Delcy announcement in April. The legal-enablement layer is closed; payment mechanism and power reform are not. The power constraint ceilings oil production at 1.2M bpd.
The oil opening in numbers: regulatory framework, production, OFAC licenses
The oil opening in numbers. Regulatory framework, production, OFAC licenses, and the players positioning themselves.
OFAC Licenses
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Official sources
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