Washington, having been instrumental in deploying mostly sanctions to degrade Venezuela’s oil and gas industry, the administration of United States’ President Joe Biden appears to be mindful that it does not preside over the complete collapse of the energy sector of the country believed to possess the asingle largest volume of oil reserves anywhere in the world. To help fix the considerable damage which Washington inflicted on Venezuela’s oil industry, the United States has pressed one of its heavyweight oil and gas companies into service to help keep the sector afloat, a mindfulness of the reality that Venezuela, even with President Nicholas Maduro running the country, is a ‘gift horse’ it would be unwise to look in the mouth.
Reuters disclosed earlier this week that Chevron has been working assiduously to create new drill rigs for Venezuela’s oil sector in a move that is designed to increase the country’s oil output in the shortest possible time. This assignment, the Reuters report says, is proceeding under a six-month license granted to the company by the US administration to better position Venezuela to boost its oil output. Chevron, the Reuters report says, is aiming to add two drilling rigs to the country’s oil recovery inventory early next year in order to increase its oil output to 200,000 bpd by the end of 2024. This would mean adding 65,000 barrels per day (bpd) of Venezuelan oil output by the end of 2024 through Chevron’s major drilling campaign in the country since it ‘cleared’ the restoration, drastically reduced by Washington.
For all the considerable differences between Washington and Caracas, a fair measure of pragmatism has prevailed in a relationship in which Washington has not been unmindful of Caracas’ strategic petro significance in the western hemisphere. The job currently being effected by Chevron keeps Venezuela ‘in the game’, allowing the country to continue to raise its crude production thereby accelerating the pace at which Chevron recoups the US$3 billion reportedly owed to it on account of debts from projects which it had earlier executed in the country. Figures provided by Reuters indicate joint ventures between the Venezuelan state-owned and Chevron has increased overall oil production in the country by some 135,000 bpd and allowed for an average 124,000 bpd to be exported to the U.S. this year, information which the Reuters report says had been culled from “independent estimates and shipping data.”
This, the report says has resulted in Venezuela’s oil exports to the US to get close to the levels that had obtained before Washington “imposed sanctions in 2019.” The Reuters report adds that current oil flows to the US from Venezuela mark a 70%-increase from average output in 2022 while “almost all of the country’s 70,000-bpd output increase so far this year has come from the Chevron-PDVSA projects.” The current drilling rigs project which Chevron is reported to be executing are said to be inextricably linked to further upping the rate of oil recovery. “Chevron’s production target of reaching 200,000 bpd by the end of next year could go far to helping Venezuela achieve its aim to surpass 1 million bpd, from an average of 785,000 bpd so far in 2023,” the Reuters report adds.
