The Secretary of Energy of the United States, Chris Wright, visited this Thursday the facilities of the PetroIndependencia company, a joint venture between the Chevron oil companies and the state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA).
The company, which has operated in the country since 2010, produces 40 thousand barrels of oil per day, but has the potential to produce up to 300 thousand barrels per day, according to information from Chevron itself.
Wright was accompanied by Delcy Rodríguez and the US charge d’affaires in Venezuela, Laura Dogu.
The United States Secretary of Energy arrived in Venezuela on Wednesday to evaluate the country’s oil industry firsthand.This visit reaffirms the role that the US government has assigned to revitalize the deteriorated Venezuelan energy sector.
Wright met with Rodríguez at the Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas.He is expected to meet with government officials, oil executives and others during a three-day visit to the South American country.
Wright’s visit comes as US President Donald Trump’s administration continues to lift sanctions to allow foreign companies to operate in Venezuela and help rebuild the country’s most important industry.This follows the enactment last month of a Venezuelan law that opened the oil sector to private investment, reversing a principle of the self-proclaimed socialist movement that governed the country for more than two decades.
“Today I bring a message from President Trump,” Wright declared to the press alongside Rodriguez with flags of both countries behind him: “He is firmly committed to the total transformation of the relationship between the United States and Venezuela, as part of a broader agenda to rekindle the greatness of the Americas, bring our countries closer together and provide trade, peace, prosperity, employment and opportunities to the Venezuelan people.”
Rodríguez assumed his new position after the brazen US military attack against then-dictator Nicolás Maduro on January 3 in Caracas.He proposed reforming the country’s energy law after Trump said his administration would take control of Venezuelan oil exports and revitalize the ailing industry by attracting foreign investment.
Rodríguez acknowledged on Wednesday that Venezuela’s relationship with the United States has had ups and downs, but affirmed that both countries are now working on a mutually beneficial energy agenda.
“May diplomatic dialogue… and energy dialogue be the appropriate and adequate channels for the United States and Venezuela to maturely determine how to move forward,” he declared.
The Rodríguez regime hopes that changes to the country’s oil law will serve as a guarantee for major American oil companies that until now have hesitated to return to the volatile country.Some of these companies lost investments when the ruling party enacted the current law decades ago to favor the Venezuelan state oil company, PDVSA.
The new law gives private companies control over the production and sale of oil, ending PDVSA’s monopoly on such activities, as well as on price setting.It also allows for independent arbitration of disputes, eliminating the obligation for disagreements to be resolved only in Venezuelan courts, controlled by the ruling party.
Foreign investors consider the participation of independent arbitrators to be crucial to avoid future expropriations.
Wright told the press that the reform “is a significant step in the right direction,” but “it is probably not deep or clear enough to encourage the kind of large capital flows” that the United States would like to see in Venezuela.
Venezuela, which has the world’s largest proven oil reserves and produces around a million barrels a day, has long relied on oil revenues as a vital element of its economy.
Trump imposed severe sanctions on the Venezuelan oil industry during his first term, excluding the state company Petróleos de Venezuela S.A.of global oil markets in an attempt to overthrow Maduro.This led his government to turn to a clandestine fleet of unflagged oil tankers to smuggle deeply discounted crude into global supply chains.
In December, Trump ordered the blockade of all “sanctioned oil tankers” entering or leaving the South American country, increasing pressure on Maduro in a move that appeared designed to further strangle the Venezuelan economy. That same month, US forces also began seizing oil tankers off Venezuela’s Caribbean coast.
Since Maduro’s departure on January 3, the Trump administration has set out to control the production, refining and global distribution of Venezuelan oil products and supervise the flow of revenue.The government also began lifting broad sanctions, but continued to seize oil tankers — now with the agreement of the Venezuelan government — including one this week in the Indian Ocean after being tracked from the Caribbean Sea.
On Wednesday, Wright told the press that the blockade has practically ended, as the United States is “expelling Venezuelan crude oil, selling it at a much higher price than Venezuela was selling before,” and that the proceeds are being used for specific projects that benefit Venezuelans.
