A matter of days after the United States administration announced that it was lifting the restrictions which had placed an embargo on the US oil giant Chevron plying its trade alongside Venezuela’s oil and gas industry, the authorities in Caracas have moved with haste to sign a contract with the oil company effectively green-lighting the recommencement of the collaborative work that not only represents the restoration of vital technical support for the country’s oil and gas sector, but also restored an important income stream which reportedly had to leave substantial sums of earnings behind in order to be compliant with Washington’s instructions that it leave Caracas with due haste.
“This contract aims to continue with the productive and development activities in this energy sector, framed within our Constitution and the Venezuelan laws that govern oil activity in the country,” is what a CNN report earlier this week quoted Venezuela’s Oil Minister Tareck El Aissami as saying. The signing ceremony for the new contract was reportedly attended by representatives of both PDVSA and Chevron.
For Venezuela, any deal that can keep its badly damaged oil and gas industry afloat will come as a relief, never mind the fact that the deal comes at a price… the Maduro administration must return to talks with the country’s US-recognized political opposition which is headed by its US-supported ‘front man’ Juan Guaido.
According to Reuters, the U.S. license allowing Chevron to expand Venezuela’s oil production and export its oil will be designed to prevent PDVSA, from profiting from the sales, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The fact that the deal stipulates that Caracas not receive any of the profits accruing from the oil sales by Chevron suggests that in terms of its negotiations with Washington for the full restoration of sovereignty over its oil resources, the Maduro administration is still playing with a weak hand. The ‘deal’ reportedly, had only been struck after the Biden administration had satisfied some US Senators that the deal was intended to “shift oil sales from illicit and non-transparent channels to transparent, legitimate channels,” a CNN report quoted a source close to the situation as saying.
The political caveats in the deal include, among other things, an agreement on humanitarian relief and an undertaking that negotiations will persist in search of a solution to the country’s chronic economic and political crisis.
