Chevron Challenges Trump-Backed Oil Venture in Venezuela

American oil giant Chevron is investing $7 billion to double its production in Venezuela within five years, reaching 600,000 barrels a day. This move puts the company directly in competition with a new oil venture planned by the Trump administration, which will acquire a stake and control over a fifth of Venezuela's vast reserves.

Chevron's investment is focused on two fields in the Orinoco Belt, Carabobo-1 and Carabobo-2-South-A, with an estimated extraction cost of $20 a barrel. The company aims to bring Venezuelan production back up from 300,000 barrels a day.

The Trump administration has announced its own private joint venture, North American Blue Energy Partners (NABEP), led by Venezuelan businessman Alejandro Betancourt, which will have concessions on 17 fields covering roughly 65 billion barrels of reserves. The Pentagon will take a stake in the new company, viewing it as a matter of strategic energy security.

Despite the enthusiasm for these deals, analysts are cautioning that restoring Venezuela's oil infrastructure to full capacity will take time due to decades of underinvestment and sanctions.