MACRO · INFLATION & FX
Inflation & FX
Inflation and the exchange rate set the cost of operating in Venezuela; their path conditions the hard-currency planning of firms and investors exposed to the country.
VE Pulses
16Venezuela 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.
Venezuela opens the week on three fronts: Brazil at the table, a fight over its debt, and the U.S. in its gold mines
Last week the opening produced signatures; now it measures who governs it: whether the table with Brazil leaves deals, whether the debt is awarded on a process not by hand, and under what architecture —with the U.S. inside— the gold flows.
Shell signs Phase I of the Loran field and the debt restructuring already has a draft price
The new permit regime is already producing contracts in gas, debt and agriculture; what it does not yet produce is what would sustain them: a stable barrel, reserves that hold, and a standing judicial arbiter.
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's State seizes Bolívar's gold by force, 672 MW of idle hydropower restart under a U.S. license, and the bolívar holds on reserves
The record barrel funds Venezuela's recovery but buys no structure: the State reorders the gold rent by force, the power grid restarts only with a U.S. license, and the bolívar holds by spending reserves. Volume flows; the rest is the pending test.
The U.S. blockades Venezuela's sanctioned crude by sea and presses on its oil law, as a Middle East truce cheapens the barrel
Washington controls all four levers of Venezuela's oil revenue —cash, rules, route and now the price— so its record export volume decides less and less.
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.
June opens with the first formal technical IMF-Venezuela session in six years — and with the opposition setting the electoral date as a condition
The doors the international financial system pushed open over the weekend open a technical channel — but the electoral calendar, which the street demands, remains without a date.
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.
Caracas redesigns itself in 90 days, India receives 319 kbpd from Venezuela and LNG Energy commits US$200M to upstream
The State apparatus reengineering, the oil flow to India and the return of U.S. private capital run at once on the same second-quarter timeline — and the operational question is whether the three are coordinated or each responds to a different principal.
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.
Venezuela's transition opens the week with two Washington tracks that no longer pretend to converge
While John Barrett pushes the new Mining Law with Hydrocarbons and the Central Bank in Caracas, and the BCV technical delegation travels to Washington to open the formal IMF cycle, the Unitary Platform regroups in Panama without explicit White House mandate. The uncertainty is not about phases, it is about simultaneous channels.
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
06Venezuela GDP Q1 2026 (+2.5%): BCV transparency and the road to IMF Article IV
The Central Bank of Venezuela released first-quarter 2026 results on May 20 after sixteen months of statistical opacity. GDP +2.5% year-on-year — slowest expansion since Q2 2021 —, non-oil +3.11%, hydrocarbon sector -2.12%, Financial Services +13.46%, Construction -18.30%. The release frames the reactivation with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank and opens the path toward the first IMF technical mission in June or July and eventually to the Article IV consultation pending since 2004.
Venezuela, day 110: the institutional map and the decisions still pending
On April 3, the 90-day constitutional term expired without a formal extension vote or declaration of permanent vacancy. At day 110, the economic architecture advanced: 13 GLs, hydrocarbons and mining reforms, BCV desanctioned. The political architecture — CNE, Electoral Statute, convocation, roadmap — did not. This analysis documents facts, separates confirmed from disputed, and maps pending decisions.
New BCV President Amid Full Reconnection: What to Expect from Luis Pérez and Why Timing Matters
Delcy Rodríguez appointed Luis Pérez as new BCV president after Laura Guerra's resignation. The change occurs in the densest week for Venezuela's financial system in a decade.
Venezuela vuelve al FMI: el país que pagó su deuda, se aisló 21 años y ahora tiene $4.9B esperándolo
Qué son los DEGs, qué pasó con otros países que hicieron lo mismo, y en qué se traduce para la reconstrucción
Tres escenarios para Venezuela H2 2026: qué pasa si las reformas se aceleran, se estancan, o colapsan
Verdict: UNDER OBSERVATION · Favorable outlook. Three months after Maduro's capture, Venezuela has produced more legal reforms than in the past decade. But oil majors call them inadequate, productivity is the hemisphere's lowest, and PDVSA's debt has no restructuring plan. This analysis evaluates three possible paths for the second half — and what each means for investors.
$391 por trabajador: el colapso de la productividad venezolana y lo que significa para quien quiere producir en el país
Verdict: UNDER OBSERVATION · Favorable outlook. Real output per worker in Venezuela fell from $1,014 in 2008 to $391 in 2025. To match the output of one American worker, you need 286 Venezuelans. The most devastating number in the country isn't inflation or debt — it's productivity. And no OFAC license fixes it.
Sector Briefs
04The bi-monetary economy grows double digits while the bolivar loses a quarter of its value
The macroeconomic outlook evaluated for the investor. GDP, inflation, exchange rate, budget and monetary policy.
Financial sector: between the 73% reserve requirement and $20B in unregulated USDT
Banking, fintech, stablecoins, digital payments and credit. What works, what doesn't, and where the opportunity lies.
SEZs, manufacturing and foreign trade: the non-oil economy under the microscope
SEZs, manufacturing, foreign trade and telecommunications. The non-oil economy under the microscope.
Multidimensional assessment: political, regulatory, operational, fiscal, sanctions, legal, social and exchange rate
Multidimensional assessment: political, regulatory, operational, fiscal, sanctions, legal, social and FX.
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