Chevron, Eni expand Venezuela oil operations amid US control deal

In Caracas on Wednesday, executives from three major energy companies gathered to sign contracts worth billions of dollars, reshaping Venezuela's oil sector under the watch of interim President Delcy Rodriguez and US Energy Secretary Chris Wright. Chevron, Italy's Eni, and GE Vernova—a spinoff of General Electric—each inked deals to expand their footprint in a country that holds the world's largest proven oil reserves but has seen production collapse over the past two decades.

Chevron, already Venezuela's largest private oil producer, valued its agreement to develop two additional fields in the Orinoco Belt at $7 billion. The company expects to more than double output from those fields within five years. Eni secured exclusive exploration rights to the Junin 5 oilfield, one of the world's largest untapped reserves. GE Vernova took on a different role, committing to help rebuild Venezuela's electricity grid, which has deteriorated significantly. These contracts represent expansions of projects that have been under negotiation with Venezuela's state oil company PDVSA and the Oil Ministry since January, when the government approved sweeping reforms to its energy sector.

The signing ceremony carried symbolic weight beyond the individual deals. It came just days after Venezuela and the United States announced a separate, far larger agreement: a 100-year concession granting American-led companies control of 17 Venezuelan oilfields—roughly a fifth of the country's total reserves. Wright framed the new contracts as evidence of momentum. "We are trying to work at what I call Trump-speed," he said, emphasizing that President Donald Trump wanted rapid transformation rather than gradual progress. The Energy Secretary projected that Venezuelan oil output would reach 2 million barrels per day by the end of the decade, up from the current 1.25 million—still far short of the nation's peak of over 3 million barrels daily in the late 1990s.

The deals have ignited fierce debate about Venezuelan sovereignty. Critics in both the United States and Venezuela argue that the Trump administration extracted these concessions through coercion, pointing to the abduction of former President Nicolas Maduro in a raid and implicit threats against Rodriguez if she resisted Washington's demands. Wright pushed back directly, telling reporters that the US was not "stealing Venezuelan oil" but rather developing assets that were lying dormant underground. He characterized the arrangement as a transfer of money and technology that would benefit Venezuelans through jobs, wages, and improved public services.

Rodriguez echoed that framing, denying any surrender of national wealth. She argued that foreign investment was essential to revive the oil sector and that increased production would translate into employment, higher wages, better hospitals, schools, and food security. She estimated Venezuela would earn $209 billion in profit from all the deals over 25 years. Yet her assurances have done little to quiet concerns about democratic accountability. Eight months after Maduro's removal, Venezuela has held no elections, and Rodriguez has given no timeline for when voting might occur—only saying there would be "an electoral process" when "Venezuela is ready." Trump himself rejected calls from Republican lawmakers for quick polls, saying the country was still too new to democracy.

One figure looming over the arrangements is Alejandro Betancourt, a Venezuelan businessman accused of fraud who has been linked to corruption at PDVSA. Betancourt runs North American Blue Energy Partners, Venezuela's second-largest private oil company, in which the US government is taking a 35 percent stake under the broader deal. He did not appear at Wednesday's ceremony, but Wright defended NABEP's track record, calling it a reliable business partner. The prominence of Betancourt in these arrangements—and his absence from public view—underscores the opacity surrounding how power and profit are being distributed in Venezuela's new oil order.

The agreements represent a dramatic reversal for a nation that, under Hugo Chavez two decades ago, nationalized its oil fields on an explicitly anti-imperialist platform. That ideological foundation has now been abandoned. Instead, Venezuela's interim government has opened its energy wealth to foreign control on terms that critics say prioritize American interests and entrench a leadership that has shown no commitment to democratic elections. Whether the promised investment and production increases materialize, and at what cost to Venezuelan sovereignty and democratic governance, remains an open question.