The U.S. energy giant, which stayed in the country after other Western companies
left, will invest $7 billion in the country to more than double its production there.
Point Summary:
·
Chevron
plans to invest more than $7
billion in Venezuela over the next five years and increase its oil
production to 600,000 barrels
per day (BPD).
·
The planned
output would be more than double
Chevron's current production and represent over half of Venezuela's
present oil output.
·
Chevron
is expanding its presence in the oil-rich
Orinoco Belt, gaining access to new production areas.
·
The expansion
follows Venezuelan legal reforms aimed at providing greater control and incentives to foreign
oil companies to attract investment.
·
Chevron
had been producing around 280,000
BPD in Venezuela and had previously planned significant production
growth by 2028.
·
The development
strengthens the U.S. economic
and strategic presence in Venezuela's energy sector.
·
Chevron's
position is aided by its decision to remain
in Venezuela after the country's oil industry nationalisation, unlike
Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips, which exited.
·
The expansion
comes alongside a separate U.S. government-backed partnership involving North American Blue Energy Partners,
potentially giving the U.S. preferential access to oil production and significant
influence over the company.
·
The developments
could reshape competition,
foreign investment and U.S. influence in Venezuela's oil industry,
while increasing Chevron's role as a major private producer in the country.
[ABS News Service/03.09.2026
Chevron plans to significantly expand its
operations in Venezuela, the U.S. oil giant
said on Wednesday, taking yet another step to broaden the U.S. sphere of influence
in the South American country.
The Houston-based company, already Venezuela’s largest private oil
producer, said it would more than double its production in the country over the
next five years to 600,000 barrels a day. That represents more than half of Venezuela’s
current output.
Chevron, which is gaining access to new areas in the oil-rich Orinoco
Belt region, plans to invest more than $7 billion in Venezuela in that period.
The company announced its plans days after President Trump said his
administration was pursuing a highly unusual
partnership with a different oil company that
would give the U.S. government a direct hand in extracting oil on foreign soil.
The two deals are separate, but both advance Mr. Trump’s goal of
exerting much more control over Venezuela’s energy industry after U.S. forces captured
the country’s leader, Nicolás Maduro, in January.
“Our expanded position reflects our confidence in the country’s deep
resource potential and its ability to compete for investment within our portfolio
for decades,” Chevron’s chief executive, Mike Wirth, said in a statement.
Under pressure from the Trump administration, Venezuela has been
making changes to attract American companies and other foreign investors roughly
two decades after the country nationalized the oil industry. In January, the country’s
National Assembly voted to give foreign companies
much greater control over their Venezuelan operations.
The legal changes in Venezuela this year have “taken this from not
being very competitive within our set of alternatives to something that’s very competitive,”
Mr. Wirth told CNBC.
Chevron, in turn, has been steadily expanding in the Orinoco Belt,
including by agreeing
earlier this year to trade assets with Venezuela’s
state-owned oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela. Chevron declined to comment on
how long it would take to ramp up production from the drilling areas that are part
of the deal announced on Wednesday.
As of earlier this summer, Chevron was producing around 280,000 barrels
of oil a day in Venezuela and expected to increase that by up to 50 percent by the
end of 2028, said Eimear Bonner, the company’s chief financial officer. That output
is shared with the Venezuelan state oil company, its partner there.
Chevron pumps around four million barrels of oil and natural gas
a day globally at an estimated cost of more than $18 billion in capital spending
this year.
Chevron is unique among big American oil producers for remaining in Venezuela after the country forced foreign companies to accept smaller stakes
in their projects when it nationalized the industry. Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips
left after refusing to accept those changes.
Chevron’s decision to stay — which looked at times like a very bad
bet — now appears to be paying off. The company has been in a prime position as
the Trump administration has sought to carve out a bigger role for U.S. companies
in Venezuela.
That said, the Trump administration’s new partnership, which is with
an influential and divisive
Venezuelan businessman, Alejandro Betancourt
López, may complicate Chevron’s standing in the country by elevating a competitor.
Mr. Betancourt’s family controls Venezuela’s second-largest private oil producer,
North American Blue Energy Partners.
Under the deal announced by the administration, the U.S. government
would receive the option to acquire an ownership stake of 35 percent in the parent
company of North American Blue Energy Partners. The United States would also secure
preferential access to the oil that the company produced and considerable say over
its corporate governance.
“It’s one thing for a government to expropriate assets of private
corporations. It’s another thing to expropriate assets that are owned by the United
States of America,” the U.S. energy secretary, Chris Wright, told CNBC ahead of
a signing ceremony for the Chevron deal in Caracas. “We think it increases the security
and confidence in the rule of law and the sanctity of contract in Venezuela.”