ENERGY MAJOR · FRENCH
TotalEnergies
TotalEnergies is the French energy company with a history of projects in Venezuela; its stance reflects the majors' caution toward the country's regulatory and sanctions risk.
VE Pulses
21Pacific 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.
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.
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.
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.
The IDB puts Venezuela's power grid in a two-year plan and the debt owed to the bank stays undated
The bank stopped approving new loans to Venezuela in May 2018. Its president described on Monday the missions preparing the document for the next two years, without saying how the overdue payments get settled or when disbursement could resume.
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.
BCV scraps the commercial credit ceiling and makes 16% the floor for bolivar loans
The repealed resolution set a band: no more than 16% a year, no less than 13%. The one in force since Tuesday deletes the ceiling and leaves that same 16% as the minimum. The bank's press note announced what it will pay on deposits; what borrowing will cost sits in the official gazette.
OFAC's GL 52C lets a sanctioned official sign for PDVSA
Until last night, a sanctioned officer signing was enough to make the transaction prohibited, and the contract stalled in its last box. The same document closes the door on the Citgo structure in Delaware, by name.
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.
The signature for PDVSA changes in the Delaware case auctioning Citgo's parent
On May 11 the court record noted the removal of three Arnold & Porter attorneys. On Tuesday a one-partner Wilmington firm appeared for Petroleos de Venezuela. The sale the judge authorized has still not closed.
Nabors dates its Venezuela return for 2027; NABEP, Washington's operator, counted six rigs this year
The deal's operator placed six rigs drilling before December. The two suppliers that filed on Tuesday with the securities regulator date something else: one rig starting in 2027 and components for ten more only now leaving the United States.
India and Europe absorbed in August the barrels PDVSA stopped sending to the United States
Total loadings did not move. What moved was the split: the United States came off a July record and fell, India rose by two thirds and Europe nearly tripled.
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.
Venezuela's exchange no longer values companies: it lends to them, and that is 96.5% of its volume
The country has a capital market that works, though not to value companies: it works to fund them short-term, the one thing banks cannot do today.
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 earthquake has already priced Venezuela's rebuild; the money to pay for it is missing
The earthquake has stopped being only a humanitarian emergency and become a financing one: rebuilding costs several points of GDP and the money assembled covers barely a fraction —on a state with no margin.
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.
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 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.
Sector Briefs
10Venezuela 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 banking and bonds August 2026: banks grow 26% without lending and the collateral stays frozen
The short, successive extensions of the collateral signal a live negotiation whose calendar governs the contractual maturity. Financial activity grew 26.26% in the second quarter with private credit blocked by a 73% reserve requirement.
Venezuela country risk August 2026: the file runs on two clocks and only one tells verifiable time
The Venezuelan file operates on two clocks: an external one producing verifiable acts at a reliable cadence, and an internal one whose statements have no associated indicator. Reconstruction is the best available proxy for state execution capacity.
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.
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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