Chevron, US Firms Near Deals to Invest Billions in Venezuela Oil Fields
US oil companies are nearing a deal to revive Venezuela's broken energy industry. Chevron and other American firms are reportedly close to finalizing agreements to expand oil drilling and related operations in Venezuela, eight months after the United States removed Nicolás Maduro from power.
The negotiations could give American companies access to more than a dozen producing Venezuelan oil fields holding an estimated 90 billion barrels of proven reserves. This would allow US firms to drill, produce, upgrade, and export Venezuelan crude, potentially strengthening long-term supply for the United States while opening the country's vast oil resources to greater private-sector development.
For Venezuela, expanded investment by American oil companies could help restore an industry devastated by years of nationalization, corruption, and socialist mismanagement. The country has the natural resources to once again become a major oil exporter, but it needs the capital, technical capacity, and freer market conditions to use them.