In short
- North American Blue Energy Partners (Nabep), a Barbados-registered firm headed by Alejandro Betancourt López, will oversee the production and sale of 17 Venezuelan oil fields holding about 65bn barrels of crude.
- Alejandro Betancourt López was born in Caracas in February 1980, graduated from Suffolk University in Boston and is estimated to be worth around $2.6bn.
- Derwick Associates, the engineering firm Betancourt founded with a cousin, received 12 Venezuelan government contracts awarded without bidding for a total of $5bn.
- A 2018 report by Transparency Venezuela estimated that 11 projects awarded to Derwick should have cost $2.1bn, which would mean an overpayment of 138%.
- US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Betancourt had a track record of producing oil, was not currently under investigation by the US and strongly supported the Venezuelan opposition.
A Barbados-registered company led by the Venezuelan businessman Alejandro Betancourt López will oversee production and sale at 17 Venezuelan oil fields holding about 65bn barrels of crude, under an agreement that gives the US control of strategic oil fields and that President Donald Trump has called “the biggest in history”.
Who is Alejandro Betancourt López?
Betancourt was born in Caracas in February 1980 into a middle-class family and graduated from Suffolk University in Boston, Massachusetts. The 46-year-old is estimated to be worth around $2.6bn and heads North American Blue Energy Partners (Nabep), the firm that will run the 17 fields.
How did he build his business in Venezuela?
Venezuelan journalists who have followed his career trace it to the Instituto Cumbres de Caracas, a private religious school in the capital. The journalist Alek Boyd, who has tracked Betancourt since 2011, said he became a close school friend of Javier Alvarado Pardi, whose father later became president of Electricidad de Caracas, vice-minister of energy and an executive at the state oil company PDVSA.
“In 2009, at the height of the electricity crisis, Alvarado introduced Betancourt and his partners to his father and assured him they could solve the problem… despite having no experience in the electricity sector,” Boyd said. Around that time, Derwick Associates, the engineering firm Betancourt founded with a cousin, received 12 government contracts awarded without bidding for a total of $5bn.
He and other young entrepreneurs working with the government were nicknamed “bolichicos”, a slang mix of “Bolivarian” and “chico”, or boy. His lawyer in the US, Jon Sale, rejected the label, calling it “a term coined by the media, used to describe a group of young people whose only commonality is their success”.
What investigations has he faced?
Anti-corruption organisations including Transparency Venezuela and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project allege several Derwick projects were unfinished or badly executed. A 2018 Transparency Venezuela report estimated that 11 projects awarded to Derwick should have cost $2.1bn, which would mean the government overpaid by 138%. Betancourt’s legal team has rejected the overbilling accusations as politically motivated smears.
A 2013 lawsuit by the former US ambassador to Venezuela, Otto Reich, accused Betancourt and two associates of “paying large sums to [Venezuelan] public officials in exchange for awarding them contracts”; it was dismissed five years later. In recent years judicial authorities in Spain, Switzerland, Andorra and the US have opened investigations into Betancourt and other “bolichicos” over alleged corruption schemes linked to PDVSA. He has not been charged and denies wrongdoing. In 2025 British police detained him twice in London, where he had settled, and Spanish authorities raided Alamín Castle, an estate he owned in Toledo province; both operations were reportedly linked to a Swiss money laundering investigation.
In a separate case involving a figure close to Venezuela’s government, Maduro ally Alex Saab pleaded guilty in a US money laundering case.
Why did the US choose Betancourt as a partner?
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio gave three reasons in an interview with the Venezuelan journalist Sergio Novelli: “He has a track record of being able to produce oil”; he was not currently being investigated by the US; and “he is an individual who strongly supported the opposition”. Some experts say Nabep produces around 180,000 barrels of crude per day, behind Chevron’s more than 200,000, though others question those figures.
The US has also dropped Venezuela and Bolivia from its drug non-compliance list.
Frequently asked questions
Who is Alejandro Betancourt López?
He is a Venezuelan businessman born in Caracas in February 1980, estimated to be worth around $2.6bn, who heads the Barbados-registered firm North American Blue Energy Partners (Nabep). He has been investigated in several countries, has never been convicted of a crime and denies wrongdoing.
How many oil fields will Nabep oversee and how much crude do they hold?
Nabep will oversee the production and sale of 17 Venezuelan oil fields containing about 65bn barrels of crude, under an agreement that gives the US control of strategic oil fields.
What investigations has Alejandro Betancourt faced?
Judicial authorities in Spain, Switzerland, Andorra and the US have opened investigations into him and other so-called “bolichicos” over alleged corruption schemes linked to the state oil company PDVSA. He has not been charged and denies wrongdoing.
Why did the US pick Betancourt for the Venezuela oil deal?
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio cited three reasons: a track record of producing oil, no current US investigation into Betancourt, and his strong support for the Venezuelan opposition.
With reporting from BBC News.
Stock image, not from the events described. City Skyline — Joe deSousa / Wikimedia Commons (CC0 1.0)
