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Merey Crude
Merey is Venezuela's benchmark heavy crude; it trades at a variable discount to Brent and defines the country's revenue per exported barrel.
VE Pulses
19Venezuela 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.
Weekly close: Washington halts prosecutors and delists tankers, the AN installs the Friendship Group with the U.S. and the opposition signs the Panama Manifesto
Washington clears Delcy Rodríguez's legal path, the Chavista parliament institutionalizes the rapprochement and the opposition signs in Panama to negotiate her exit — normalization runs on three lanes that do not coordinate.
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.
Weekly close: Exxon nears Venezuela deal, Conoco rejects 95% take, Delcy heads to India and BVC raises capital
The apertura now has a name moving and a name objecting — Exxon close to an announcement, Conoco putting a numeric ceiling on what the framework can ask.
Venezuela Hydrocarbons speaks in Houston, DOJ charges Saab in Miami, Aeroméxico schedules Caracas
Houston, Miami and Mexico City concentrate Venezuelan activity today on the same axis — the Hydrocarbons Ministry at the AAPG, Saab in SDFL federal custody, Aeroméxico fixing October for the return to Maiquetía. Three documents the same day; the question now is which one produces a verifiable next step before June.
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
Sector Briefs
02Chevron 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).
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