Chevron, after signing the agreements with the Venezuelan Executive, plans to meet with its Venezuelan partners and representatives of the gas industry in Caracas
The US oil company Chevron will resume exploitation of the extra-heavy oil upgrader Petropiar, located in the Orinoco Oil Belt, which represents a significant expansion of the participation of the private sector in the sector, as reported to Argus a company source.
The reactivation of the upgrader comes after the United States expanded the limits of Chevron’s operations to allow it to sell crude from its joint ventures in Venezuela exclusively in the North American market, as a positive response to the administration of Nicolás Maduro for agreeing to resume talks with the political opposition.
State company PDVSA and Chevron last week signed four new contracts for existing oil production JVs (Petroboscán, Petropiar, Petroindependiente and Petroindependencia), but neither party disclosed details of the contracts. Chevron owns 30% of Petropiar.
It will be the first time that a foreign oil company is allowed to exploit an upgrader since the renationalization of the energy industry carried out in 2006-2007 by former President Hugo Chávez.
Specialized analysts expect that the ruler Nicolás Maduro introduce even more changes to the way the country deals with international oil companies.
“That was what we expected, that Chevron would acquire control of the management of these joint ventureincluding tenders,” an industry analyst told Argus.
Chevron, after signing the agreements with the Venezuelan Executive, plans to meet with his Venezuelan partners and representatives of the gas industry in Caracas, one of the guests at this meeting told the US agency.
The production sold from the joint ventures with PDVSA in which Chevron participates was located at 42,000 barrels per day in 2019, the last full annual exercise before Washington tightened restrictions on the terms of US companies operating in that country.
Petropiar’s upgraded oil production stood at about 29,000 barrels a day in September 2022 and accounted for essentially all production in the country from the four Chevron-PDVSA joint ventures, according to a production report from the Venezuelan state oil company.
The joint ventures in which the US Chevron participates in Venezuela produced, on a consolidated basis, 100,000 barrels per day in 2017.
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