US oil giant Chevron confirms it will expand operations in Venezuela
[September 03, 2026] By
MICHELLE CHAPMAN and REGINA GARCIA CANO
Oil giant Chevron confirmed that it will expand operations in Venezuela
after President Donald Trump announced an ambitious deal to develop the
nation’s oil reserves and give the Pentagon a stake in the profits.
Chevron, the only U.S. oil company with a major presence in Venezuela,
said Wednesday that it has been assigned additional acreage in the
Orinoco Belt, where it has active operations. The company plans to
invest more than $7 billion over the next five years, with the goal of
more than doubling its current production to about 600,000 barrels a
day.
“Chevron’s history in Venezuela spans more than a century, and our
expanded position reflects our confidence in the country’s deep resource
potential,” CEO Mike Wirth said in a prepared statement.
Venezuela holds the world's largest proven reserves, totaling more than
303 billion barrels of crude oil, according to OPEC's 2025 Annual
Statistical Bulletin. Saudi Arabia is a distant second with 267 billion
barrels.
Yet because Venezuela's energy infrastructure is severely degraded and
the nation is operating under international sanctions, its daily
production is just over 1 million barrels, compared with the 10 million
to 11 million barrels that Saudi Arabia produces each day. The U.S.
produces almost 14 million barrels per day.
Chevron's expansion follows US deal with Venezuela
Chevron, the second-largest U.S. oil company, has had a presence in
Venezuela since 1923.
U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright on Wednesday attended a ceremony in
Venezuela's capital in which Chevron, Italian oil company Eni and other
energy companies signed agreements with the South American country's
government.
“President Trump’s mission in Venezuela is straightforward. The mission
is to bring peace, freedom, opportunity and prosperity to the people of
Venezuela,” Wright said in Caracas. “I believe the deals that are signed
today – tens of billions of dollars of investment, ultimately many
thousands of jobs – are critical in starting this ball rolling of peace,
opportunity and prosperity for everyone in Venezuela.”
The White House confirmed Monday that it is partnering with North
American Blue Energy Partners, NABEP, as part of Trump ’s push to tap
into Venezuela’s oil industry.
Yet the agreement has been met with skepticism from energy experts who
say it will take years to revive Venezuela’s oil industry, which is in
disarray after years of neglect.
There are also questions about whether Venezuela’s acting president,
Delcy Rodríguez, has the authority to give NABEP 100-year rights over 17
oil fields with reserves of 65 billion barrels — and whether future
Venezuelan or American administrations would overturn the agreement.
US pushes back on criticism
Venezuela's constitution states that arrangements like the one that the
United States has entered must be approved by the National Assembly,
which has not happened, wrote Ian Vásquez, vice president for
international studies at the Cato Institute.
“The deal lacks legitimacy since it was agreed to with a dictatorship
that has clung to power for decades through violence and by committing
what was probably the largest electoral fraud in Latin American history
in 2024,” Vásquez wrote. “The agreement was also reached under
overwhelming pressure, military and otherwise, from the United States.
As such, any future Venezuelan democracy will question the deal, thus
undermining confidence in the current arrangement.”
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A woman walks near of a oil storage tank of Venezuela's state-run
oil company, PDVSA in Cabimas, Venezuela, Tuesday, Sep. 1, 2026. (AP
Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
 The ruling party-controlled National
Assembly expressed support for the agreement during its Tuesday
session, but lawmakers held no debate or voted to approve it.
Wright on Wednesday pushed back on criticism, telling reporters that
the deal is “a massive win” for both countries.
"Because what it’s going to do is take resources that are
underground, not helping anyone, and invest capital and money and
technology and bring them to the surface to better the lives of
Venezuelans, better supply energy to Americans,” Wright said during
a joint press conference with Rodríguez.
Trump has eyed Venezuela’s oil since the January capture of
then-President Nicolás Maduro and has pressed to get U.S. businesses
back into the country. “We have Exxon going in, we have Chevron
going in. We have our big oil companies going in,” he said that same
month.
He suggested again on Monday that other U.S. oil majors were
preparing for a return, though other than Chevron, there is no
evidence of that.
Exxon Mobil CEO Darren Woods said in January that Venezuela was “
uninvestable.” An Exxon spokesman said this week that “nothing has
changed.”
US oil majors remain hesitant
The history of U.S. oil majors in Venezuela explains the hesitation.
Venezuela nationalized its oil industry in 1976 and created the
state-owned company Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. A second
nationalization occurred in 2007, when President Hugo Chávez pushed
foreign oil companies into state-controlled joint ventures and
seized the assets of companies that refused. Chevron agreed to a
joint venture. Others, including Exxon and ConocoPhillips, refused,
and Venezuela took their assets.
Trump has said that the agreement with Venezuela would
“substantially lower” gasoline prices in the U.S. However, analysts
have repeatedly warned that Venezuela’s dilapidated oil
infrastructure will require years of restoration work and tens of
billions of dollars to resuscitate.
“It could take 2 to 4 years to get new greenfield facilities online
in the Orinoco region,” Amy Jaffe, director of the Global Energy,
Climate, and Sustainability Lab at New York University, said in an
email. "Other places where there is no pipeline and other kinds of
support infrastructure could take longer.”
Meanwhile, the national average price for a gallon of regular
gasoline jumped overnight to $4.12, according to the motor club AAA.
That is 93 cents more than it cost at this point last year.
____
Garcia Cano reported from Caracas. Associated Press writers Aamer
Madhani and Collin Binkley in Washington contributed to this report.
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