MULTILATERAL · QUOTAS & PRICE
OPEC
OPEC sets quotas and price references that frame Venezuela's oil production and revenue; the country is a founding member of the organization.
VE Pulses
40Caracas must pay first for GE Vernova to start repairing Corpoelec's power grid
Since the September agreement, the obstacle is no longer technical: engineering is done and contractors are lined up, but the company will not carry out work without being paid first, and the government has said nothing in public about when it will pay.
Venezuela's BCV and Finance Ministry bet on two-digit inflation in 2027 with no target for the bolívar
The target requires breaking 2026's pace, and the agreement rests it on two things Caracas does not control: oil revenue, held in custody by Washington, and foreign lending.
Venezuela's election clock starts with a vacancy Washington places after a new TSJ and a new CNE
The State Department published on Monday the order it expects: the Supreme Court first, then an electoral council with no power to bar candidates and, last, the vacancy that opens the election. Caracas has not confirmed it.
Machado returns to Caracas with no public guarantees from the government and outside the dialogue table
Until Saturday, the opposition leader was trying to return from Panama; since Sunday she is in Caracas, with a travel ban and a disqualification that, by reported accounts, remain in force, and outside a table that put off electoral council reform.
From 132,000 to 44,000: SENIAT cuts the list of special taxpayers that withhold VAT
Those who leave the list stop withholding the tax from their suppliers and file it once a month, not every two weeks. Fiscal printers, meanwhile, stopped being mandatory on Wednesday.
What comes first for Citgo: the Third Circuit ruling or the OFAC license Amber needs?
The judges heard Venezuela, PDVSA and Gold Reserve on Wednesday without setting a date to rule, and the $5.9 billion bid remains approved in the meantime.
The World Bank's first loan to Venezuela since 2005 waits on the country paying its overdue debt to the IDB and CAF
Venezuela has not received a World Bank loan since 2005; the bank now has a portfolio, an amount and a first operation for water and electricity, and the next step is the country's: catching up with the other multilateral lenders.
Venezuelan crude halves its discount to Brent in two months
In July, the Venezuelan benchmark sold $16.61 below Brent; in September, $8.27. With output nearly flat, the month's gain came from price.
Calixto Ortega takes the IMF a plan for the bolívar to cover every domestic transaction in Venezuela
Before the Fund, the vice president for the economy ruled out dollarization. The plan published by the central bank leaves the dollar to foreign trade and sets two-digit inflation as the condition, with no date to reach it.
Washington declines to weigh in on Citgo, and Venezuela heads to the October 21 hearing without its support
Gold Reserve backed the pause only if Washington did too, and Washington abstained. The sale of Citgo's parent now hangs on the judges' ruling and on the OFAC license Amber is still waiting for.
The round of talks Washington announced for Wednesday the 14th puts the Supreme Court ahead of the electoral council
After two rounds in Caracas, Washington put the order of the negotiation in writing: first the 32 justices, by December; the overhaul of the electoral authority, in rounds that still have no date.
Pacific Coast Energy promises to double crude output at two PDVSA blocks claimed by former partners
On July 30 the company said it was finalizing the contracts; on October 7 it confirmed it runs both blocks with full operational control. Its release mentions no OFAC license and none of the partners claiming the fields.
A ruptured gas line leaves Cardón, PDVSA's second-largest refinery, shut with no restart date
Cardón was already running without one crude unit and its catalytic cracker, idled in September for lack of feedstock; now all its plants are in emergency shutdown. PDVSA rules out major damage and says it has inventories, but sets no date to restart.
Domestic market first, LNG later: the order of Baker Hughes' gas alliance with PDVSA
The official note on Friday the 2nd's meeting with the acting president mentioned no signing; on Monday the 5th, Baker Hughes announced a framework signed with PDVSA and two US partners. Each project will need its own definitive agreement and an OFAC authorization.
The United States took almost six of every ten barrels of oil Venezuela exported in September
Venezuela exported 9% less oil in September than in August, while trading houses pressed for bigger discounts to cover freight. Shipments fell to Europe and India and rose to the United States.
Venezuelan methanol enters an OFAC license when it was already almost a quarter of US imports
Metor, the Jose plant in which the state holds 37.5%, kept selling in the United States while sanctions were in force. Since Monday the license names the product and lets the state partner in, with its payment routed to the Treasury account.
Stripe backs dollar accounts for Venezuelans under a humanitarian OFAC license expiring October 23
Two apps offer users in Venezuela virtual accounts with US account numbers, backed by Bridge, Stripe's subsidiary, and by Lead Bank. UglyCash credited its return to the humanitarian channel opened after the June earthquake, and its contract limits deposits to that aid.
Freight from José to the Gulf went from $1.90 to $5 a barrel and it is pressing the price of Merey
Until now the argument about the Venezuelan barrel was how much gets produced and who buys it. The cost of moving it has multiplied two and a half times in nine months, and the houses that ship more than half of exports want that difference taken out of the price.
Chevron will pay for Carabobo out of its joint ventures' cash, declaring a total cost under $20 a barrel
The September 2 release said how much it would invest and over what period. What Mike Wirth added on Friday says where the money comes from — whatever cash the three operating joint ventures generate, with none brought in from outside.
Merey gained more from price in August than PDVSA gained from every extra barrel
OPEC published price and volume in the same table on Thursday, and they do not weigh the same. On the month's volume, the price rise added some eleven million dollars a day; the extra barrels added seventy-seven thousand.
Washington reserves first call on every barrel from the seventeen fields
Until Friday the deal was a post on a social network. The document the White House published sets a veto over every board appointment, a fifth of output at production cost, and the right to buy the rest before anyone else.
Venezuelan crude is arriving at refineries already running at 97% of capacity
Until now the argument was how many barrels Venezuela can produce. U.S. imports of that crude doubled between February and May, and the missing margin is no longer at the wellhead: it is at the plant that processes it.
Five months separate "Maduro's inner circle" from "the highly respected Interim President"
The first phrase titles the action by which the U.S. Treasury sanctioned her in September 2018, alongside the then president’s wife. The second comes from Friday’s announcement. Between them, an administrative deletion from the list on April 1.
Anyone signing a contract in Venezuela does not yet know which Supreme Tribunal will hear it
Three months of nominations are void and the committee that filters the candidates moves to 23 seats, 12 of them for civil society. Not one member has been named, and the declared target is still to replace the 32 justices before January.
The IMF's first visit to Caracas in twenty years starts with the books, not with credit
A country whose books no one has reviewed since 2004 cannot receive structured funding; that the Fund starts with method and statistics says what is missing before any program exists.
A multinational pays US$30 million for a Venezuelan factory, not for a promise of recovery
For the first time since the turn, a strategic buyer is paying for installed capacity and market in Venezuela, not for the right to develop them.
Money is already betting on Venezuela's recovery before the real economy feels it
In Venezuela, private capital, the bond market and exchange-rate policy are all positioning on a recovery that hasn't happened yet: they value what they expect, not what exists.
Physical dollars return to Venezuelan banks in a week of doubts over the U.S. role
This week, the most concrete channel between Venezuela and Washington was a shipment of cash dollars; the most uncertain, an intelligence memo and a tutelage plan nobody has confirmed.
Can the power that let the constitutional clock expire be the one that now builds the electoral referee?
This week, who votes, who controls Venezuelan oil, and who answers to justice is being decided with Washington as the ultimate referee, even as Venezuelan hands sign.
Venezuela has decreed the opening of its entire oil chain; the fiscal fine print and control of the money are missing
Venezuela decreed an opening that unlocks the whole chain but leaves the reservoir in the State's hands; what it does not settle is the fiscal fine print or control of the money: crude under Treasury custody and gold in London.
The missing regulation: Venezuela completes the framework of its oil opening, 20 days before the deadline
Venezuela reworks the rules of its oil and its exchange rate to attract capital, while the United States' footprint inside the country turns physical: from the crude income under Treasury custody to the Marines in Maiquetía's control tower.
Venezuela's move of the week was not about the rubble but about control of the state's money
The week that mattered for investors was not in the rubble but in the money machinery: who runs the state bank and the tax office changed, the quake's bill began turning into financeable debt, and the crude that pays for it is getting cheaper.
Venezuela's post-quake reconstruction rests on a government that today loses its constitutional footing
Venezuela's recovery does not falter over cost but over its footing: the response to the victims and the reconstruction lean on a government whose constitutional basis, jurists say, expires today.
The clock that forces Venezuela to call elections runs out this week, held by those who least want them
The interim's expiry does not trigger elections on its own: it turns the electoral calendar into a matter of political negotiation rather than law — and that calendar, not the legal one, sets the certainty of contracts and sanctions.
A week after the quake, Venezuela's tension shifts to how the emergency is being handled
Seven days after the quake, Venezuela's biggest risk is no longer the damage but how the state manages the emergency: figures that do not add up, aid that stumbles, and a population beginning to distrust.
The earthquake tested the variable Venezuela's opening overlooked: the state's own capacity
The earthquake did not create Venezuela's fragility: it exposed the variable the opening was not charging for —the state's physical and fiscal capacity to sustain what it rebuilds— just as the largest debt renegotiation in its history opens.
A Texas fund and Abu Dhabi lay claim to 5,000 wells in the Orinoco Belt they cannot yet operate
Venezuela's opening is no longer measured by how much it opens but by who walks in: funds with no record at its oil, unnamed buyers at its companies and an opposition split over who represents it.
Dinorah Figuera returns from exile, with Washington's backing, to negotiate who runs the vote with chavismo
Washington's tutelage over Venezuela's opening is no longer only economic: it now also sets the political arbiter of the transition, just as the barrel that funds it gets cheaper.
Venezuela 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.
Analysis
01Sector Briefs
07Venezuela upstream October 2026: Merey made the quarter that production did not
Venezuela reported 1,206,000 barrels a day to OPEC for September, 5,000 more than in August, while Merey rose $16.93 to $93.75. PDVSA counts 61 signed agreements, and the first start-up declared to a regulator points to the end of 2026.
Venezuela upstream August 2026: the framework stopped being the question and the rate now decides
The Ministry of Hydrocarbons denied an extension of the contract migration deadline. Chevron declared 280,000 bpd in its joint ventures and confirmed it is negotiating fiscal terms. The United States absorbed ~786,000 bpd in July, the highest since early 2019.
Venezuela Upstream July 2026: LOH Regulation drops PDVSA (Gaceta 7,052), Repsol signs Horcón MoU, OFAC amends GL 46C-54A, Brent normalizes to $81
The first comprehensive Hydrocarbons Law regulation since 1943 opens upstream to privates without a mandatory joint venture; the VE Score eases from 94 to 84 on Brent's correction (May $104 → July $81), not regulatory deterioration.
Chevron 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).
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.
The 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.
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