OIL MAJOR · GAS AND CRUDE
Shell
Shell is one of the international oil majors with interest in gas and crude projects in Venezuela, subject to the OFAC licensing framework. Its involvement gauges the majors' appetite for the country.
VE Pulses
37PDVSA gives six to seven years to the million barrels NABEP calls near-term
Until now NABEP set the timeline for the million barrels; a PDVSA vice president has just given a much longer one, and the operator’s latest figure covers a single day.
Delcy Rodríguez orders state assets valued for sale or return to their former owners
In April, a commission was tasked with classifying the state’s holdings; since Thursday, those the state deems non-essential are being valued to be offered to private buyers or returned, with no list or timetable yet.
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.
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.
Rubio wants Reliance to refine more Venezuelan crude, with Maduro-era sanctions still in place
The United States already takes more than half of the crude Venezuela exports; its secretary of state visits the owner of the world's largest refining complex today to get it to process more, and concedes there are prior sanctions to work through, without saying which.
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.
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.
The State Department swears in the Maduro case that only Delcy Rodríguez can act for Venezuela
March's recognition rested on a statement and a speech by Trump. Since Friday the 2nd it rests on a sworn declaration, which prosecutors in New York are using to deny Maduro head-of-state immunity.
One Planta Centro unit in Carabobo carries almost half of Corpoelec's 1,300-megawatt plan
The state power company's plan adds 1,300 megawatts through December from existing units returning to service. It does not say how many of the 4,800 thermal megawatts the acting president set in August for year-end are already online.
GeoPark puts 2038 on Bare and leaves the heavy spending for after 2028
The $7 billion attached to the field in the headlines adds up capital and operating spending, not just investment. What the company gave this week is the pace: the 90,000-barrel-a-day target is set for 2038, and heavier spending comes after 2028.
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.
Corpoelec rations what it has, and Zulia waits until January 2027 for Termozulia units
The head of Corpoelec, the state power company, put the wait for a part for its plants at more than a year on Wednesday, with demand at its highest in nine years. Anyone planning 2027 in Venezuela does so with rationing inside the budget.
Who in Caracas sets the date for the elections Delcy Rodríguez promised at the UN?
The person exercising the presidency as acting head, under a precautionary order that never set how long it lasts, told the General Assembly on Wednesday there will be elections. The promise arrived the same way the office it was made from did: with no day on the calendar.
TotalEnergies signs with PDVSA without being one of the six companies Washington authorizes by name
The annex that names authorized operators in writing has not added a company since June. On Saturday one that is not on it signed at Miraflores, and no fields, amounts or timetable were disclosed.
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.
The detour on flights to Caracas ends on September 1, sixty-nine days on
What opens is not the damaged terminal but two modular halls with seven boarding gates between them. The main building, hit along with one of the runways, is being rebuilt separately and on another calendar.
Money paid up front for a Venezuelan home stops passing through the builder's hands
Until now the developer took the buyer's down payment and put it to work. The text passed on Friday routes it into a trust that releases funds only against construction progress certified by an independent engineer.
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 license it was missing: Washington clears India's state company ONGC to operate in Venezuela
ONGC now holds the permit it was missing to operate in Venezuela; what it still lacks is the assigned field, and that is not signed in Washington.
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.
No extension: on Tuesday each oil company decides whether the new fiscal regime pencils out
With the deadline firm, migrating turns from paperwork into arithmetic: at 20% to 35% by field type, each operator decides whether the return holds or keeps its rights without the fiscal benefit.
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.
Refiners are buying crude straight from PDVSA again, cutting the trading houses out
Venezuela is selling its crude to the end buyer again instead of the intermediary — the most concrete measure of how far the risk of dealing with PDVSA has fallen.
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.
The $346 million Venezuela drew from the IMF was the last money within reach that carried no conditions
The three money channels opened to Venezuela came with three different levels of oversight, and the one with the least is the one flowing straight into state accounts.
The ruling party goes from saying it had no time for the CNE to negotiating it in 72 hours
This week, whoever decides Venezuela's electoral referee, finances its reconstruction, and audits the spending and the political prisoners is never the Venezuelan state acting alone.
Venezuela bans exports of the cement it lacks to rebuild itself
With its constitutional term lapsed and no election, the State is funding reconstruction with bank credit and controls —not its own coffers— even as Brent's slide thins the one source of dollars it ultimately needs.
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.
India takes the seat in Venezuelan oil that Washington is closing to China
The opening is no longer contested over who buys Venezuelan crude, but over who operates it; and that control follows Washington's logic: India advances toward running its fields while China is pushed toward the exit.
Venezuela posts its best oil quarter in years, and the bond market answers by falling
The oil rebound now has numbers behind it, but the market that would finance the country answered by selling: without knowing how much of its debt it will pay or under what rules, the recovery is a figure, not yet an investment thesis.
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.
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.
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
03Dragon field: Venezuela's gas for Shell and Trinidad waits on three keys
Venezuela licensed Dragon to Shell and NGC in 2023 with a 20% royalty and a floor of 45% of gross revenue. Under OFAC's General License 50C, those payments would go to the Treasury fund whose disbursement the State Department decides, and Trinidad and Tobago admits it has no fiscal framework for imported gas. Three scenarios and their signals.
Venezuela's OFAC licenses: the Federal Register prints the version no longer in force
On September 11 OFAC took four Venezuela-program licenses to the Federal Register. Three had been superseded before they appeared in print, and the one covering Chevron, Repsol, Shell, BP, Eni and Maurel & Prom ran requiring U.S. law and a U.S. forum — exactly what the version in force stopped asking for on August 27.
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
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 refining August 2026: the country produces as in 2019 and converts at a quarter of capacity
The country produces crude at seven-year highs and refines at a quarter of installed capacity. Art. 43 of the Regulation grants up to −5 points of the rate to projects with integrated upgrading or refining: the only incentive aimed at that gap.
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.
Multidimensional assessment: political, regulatory, operational, fiscal, sanctions, legal, social and exchange rate
Multidimensional assessment: political, regulatory, operational, fiscal, sanctions, legal, social and FX.
OFAC Licenses
02GL 50C — Oil or Gas Sector Operations of Listed Entities
Authorizes transactions related to oil or gas sector operations in Venezuela of the entities listed in the Annex and their subsidiaries —BP, Chevron, Eni, Maurel & Prom, Repsol and Shell, the same six as in June—, with Treasury routing of payments, taxes and royalties. As of August 27, 2026, the contract must only route disputes to the U.S., U.K., France, or Singapore. Supersedes GL 50B.
GL 50A — Oil and Gas Sector Operations
Authorizes specific operations in the Venezuelan oil and gas sector including field development, infrastructure, transportation, and commercialization by foreign operators (Repsol, Eni, BP, Shell, Maurel & Prom).
Related entities
Official sources
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