British fuel giant Shell has secured its share of the war spoils in Venezuela. Following the 3 January 2026 US bombing of Venezuela and kidnap of President Nicolás Maduro and National Ass-embly deputy Cilia Flores, Shell has been a lead player in a raft of imperialist multinationals lining up to get their piece of the pie. This is gunboat diplomacy; gangster capitalism holding Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution at gunpoint to extort oil, gas, minerals and whatever else they can find.
The US has forced major concessions on the Venezuelan state; reducing royalties (upfront costs oil companies must pay to the state for extraction rights) and taxes, restricting who Venezuela can trade with and hijacking any unauthorised tankers with the help of the British RAF and army. All oil revenue is now being held in US Treasury administered accounts which Venezuela has to submit a ‘budget request’ to access. Crude oil shipments have been commercialised by US commodity trader Vitol and Transfigura, sold on the open market in line with US dictates, including to Israel despite Venezuela breaking trade and diplomatic ties with the Zionist entity since 2009. To date the US has only paid Venezuela $500m despite a reported $2bn agreement. Meanwhile US-authorised licences and sanctions waivers have determined which companies get preferential access to the loot. Signing several deals in March, Shell plans to take over the oil fields of Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), the country’s state oil company, in Monagas and is developing the Dragon offshore natural gas project alongside Trinidad and Tobago’s National Gas Corporation with the aim of exploiting gas in Venezuelan waters for sale in Trinidad. Venezuela had previously suspended all partnerships with Trinidad and Tobago due to its role in facilitating US military attacks on Venezuela and the Caribbean. The islands will be rewarded for their subservience.
A history of Shell in Venezuela
‘Is there any other company more conclusively British than this, who have proved themselves more willing and able to serve the interests of the Empire?’ Sir Marcus Samuel, chairman of the Shell Transport and Trading Company, 1915.
Whilst Shell is notorious for crimes ranging from selling oil to Francoist Spain in 1936-1939, the Amoco Cadiz oil tanker disaster in 1978 and conspiring in the murder of Ogoni (Niger Delta) environmental activist Ken Saro Wiwa in 1995, Shell’s century of operations in Venezuela are less well known.
Born from a merger between Dutch and British rivals, Royal Dutch Shell cemented its position as an ambassador for British imperialism in the early 1900s, providing fuel, TNT and shipping to the British army and Admiralty, setting up operations in Mexico, Russia and the US. By 1929, Shell produced 11% of the world’s crude oil and owned 10% of tanker tonnage.
When the oil prospecting rush began in Venezuela, Shell was primed and ready, striking its own well in 1914. In an exposé of Shell, Declassified UK reports that by 1921, Shell controlled over 1.5 million barrels of Venezuelan oil, cornering the market alongside two US firms Jersey Standard and Gulf. Shell built a towering headquarters in Caracas and by 1969, Shell’s investments were valued at around £300 million.
However a wave of nationalisations headed by anti-colonial and national liberation struggles worldwide thr-eatened British imperialism’s profiteering. The Mexican revolution had expropriated Shell’s operations in 1938, leading to a ‘Red Scare’ across the Americas. The Declassified UK report indicates that Shell was covertly funding anti-communist and anti-nationalisation networks in Venezuela, operating hand in hand with the ‘Information Research Department’ set up by the British Foreign Office in 1948 to protect Britain’s exploitation of Venezuela’s oil amongst other interests. This was not sufficient to prevent Venezuela nationalising its oil in 1976, leading to the creation of PDVSA. Nevertheless, Shell continued to rake in millions through the provision of services and marketing of Venezuelan crude: Shell Venezuela became ‘Maraven’ and the company president remained in post. The profits kept pouring in to the US and Britain.
Then came the election of Hugo Chávez in 1998, who won a landslide promising to plough oil wealth into poverty busting programmes. One of the first things Chávez did in office was to pass a new Hydrocarbons Law in 2001, raising income tax on oil to 50% and increasing royalties to 33%. The law included a mandatory stake-holding majority for the PDVSA state oil company, ensuring that the Venezuelan state maintained ultimate control over any contracts. That year Chávez travelled to London where Labour’s prime minister, Tony Blair, lobbied him to water down the oil reforms on behalf of British oil companies including Shell. As part of the charm offensive, Phillip Watts, Shell’s chairman, hosted a banquet for Chávez and senior government figures. Chávez did not budge and Shell left Venezuela’s retail fuel market in 2004 citing a lack of ‘deregulation’. Though it put new inv-estments on ice, Shell never completely pulled out; converting its operations into joint ventures controlled by PDVSA. This has left the company in pole position to exploit Venezuela’s oil and gas today.
After decimating Venezuela’s oil sector through a decade of crushing sanctions, the imperialist assault on the Bolivarian Revolution has now forced the rolling back of many elements of the 2001 Hydrocarbons Law, reducing royalties and taxes and allowing private companies to lease out whole oil fields. As the war against Iran has bottle-necked oil supplies from the Middle East, Venezuelan oil and gas are increasingly strategic. Doing its duty for British imperialism, Shell is back in business, looting and plundering for crown and country.
Imperialist hands off Venezuela! No war for oil!