U.S. energy secretary approves ‘3 large corporate deals’ in Venezuela, feels hopeful about NABEP deal

CARACAS, Venezuela — U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright met with Venezuelan interim President Delcy Rodríguez on Wednesday at the Miraflores Palace in Caracas.

Wright and Rodríguez were overseeing the signing of deals with Chevron and Italy’s Eni to increase oil output at Venezuela’s oil Orinoco Belt.

“Today is a transformative day,” Wright said during his speech at the palace. He had told reporters at the airport that the “deals will lead to a more than doubling of Venezuelan oil production in the next few years.”

Chevron announced plans to invest more than $7 billion through 2031 with the aim of increasing production in the Orinoco Belt to about 600,000 barrels a day. ENI announced a 25-year contract with rights to explore the Junin 5 oil field.

“Chevron’s history in Venezuela spans more than a century, and our expanded position reflects our confidence in the country’s deep resource potential,” Mike Wirth, Chevron’s chief executive officer, said in a statement.

GE Vernova, an energy company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, signed a deal to improve some of the electrical infrastructure in Venezuela.

“We saw three large corporate deals signed today. That’s fantastic, but the U.S. partnership with the largest local Venezuelan producer, I think, will supercharge confidence,” Wirth said while visiting earthquake damage in La Guaira.

President Donald Trump and Rodríguez recently announced the deal involving the Pentagon and North American Blue Energy Partners, owned by Venezuelan billionaire Alejandro Betancourt, who has been the subject of money laundering probes in the U.S., Switzerland, and Spain.

Betancourt, 46, has denied the accusations. In Caracas, the Venezuelan National Assembly approved the deal with NABEP — in which the Pentagon’s Office of Strategic Capital has a 35% ownership stake. Venezuela granted NABEP concessions to 17 oilfields for 100 years.

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Rystad Energy analysts project that it will take an investment of more than $183 billion for more than a decade to get to producing about 3 million barrels a day in Venezuela.

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