recently unveiled<\/a> Caracas-Washington agreement\u00a0that gives the US access to 17 Venezuelan oilfields, representing about a fifth of the country\u2019s total reserves.<\/p>\nRecommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list<\/p>\n
Most of the new contracts relate to project expansions that have been under negotiation with Venezuela\u2019s Oil Ministry and \u2060state oil company PDVSA since a sweeping oil reform approved in January following the US\u2019s abduction of former President Nicolas Maduro.<\/p>\n
Wright, who had travelled to Caracas to oversee the signing ceremony, said the deals signed by Venezuela with the US\u2019s Chevron and GE Vernova, as well as Italy\u2019s Eni, were \u201ccritical in starting this ball rolling of peace, opportunity, and prosperity\u201d in the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are trying to work at what I call Trump-speed. [US] President [Donald] Trump didn\u2019t want a nudge or a slow drift in a positive direction,\u201d Wright said. \u201cHe wanted to see as fast as possible transformation in Venezuela.\u201d<\/p>\n
The new contracts will see Chevron and Eni ramp up their operations in Venezuela while gaining greater stakes in the oil fields.<\/p>\n
Chevron, the US\u2019s second-largest oil company and the top private oil producer in Venezuela, has valued its deal to develop two additional oil fields in the Orinoco Belt at $7bn, and the project\u2019s output will more than double in five years.<\/p>\n
Eni said it had gained exclusive rights to explore the giant Junin 5 oilfield.<\/p>\n
US energy company GE Vernova, an offshoot of General Electric, meanwhile, will help repair Venezuela\u2019s battered electricity grid.<\/p>\n
US \u2018not stealing Venezuelan oil\u2019<\/p>\n
The ceremony took place amid growing questions about Venezuela\u2019s sovereignty following the larger Caracas-Washington deal, which grants a US-led company 100-year concessions over the 17 oil fields in the country.<\/p>\n
Critics in both the US and Venezuela accuse Trump of holding the country for ransom after abducting Maduro in a raid and warning that Rodriguez could face a similar fate if she does not fall into line with Washington\u2019s demands.<\/p>\n
But Wright insisted that the\u00a0US was not \u201cstealing Venezuelan oil\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll we\u2019re doing is taking an idle, underground asset that isn\u2019t doing anything for Venezuelan people, and bringing the money, the technology to develop it,\u201d he told reporters on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Wright added that the total oil output in Venezuela, which holds the world\u2019s largest proven oil reserves, will reach 2 million barrels per day (bpd) by the end of the decade, up from 1.25 million bpd today.<\/p>\n
That would still be far off Venezuela\u2019s peak of more than 3 million bpd in the late 1990s.<\/p>\n
Rodriguez, meanwhile, denied she was surrendering her country\u2019s riches, saying that cutting the US in on Venezuela\u2019s oil wealth is necessary to secure investment in the oil sector.<\/p>\n
More oil \u201ctranslates into more jobs, higher wages, better public services, hospitals, schools and food\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n
Rodriguez has estimated that Venezuela will make $209bn in profit from the deals over 25 years.<\/p>\n
The pivotal role in the deal, played by fraud-accused Venezuelan businessman Alejandro Betancourt, has come under scrutiny. He was not seen at Wednesday\u2019s ceremony.<\/p>\n
Betancourt has been linked to a corruption scandal at state oil company PDVSA and runs North American Blue Energy Partners (NABEP), Venezuela\u2019s second-largest private oil company, in which the US government is taking a 35 percent stake under the deal.<\/p>\n
Wright on Wednesday defended NABEP\u2019s \u201chighly successful track record of producing large volumes of oil in Venezuela\u201d, adding: \u201cThat\u2019s a business partner you can believe in.\u201d<\/p>\n
The agreement is a major about-face for the \u201cChavismo\u201d movement of late socialist firebrand Hugo Chavez, Maduro\u2019s mentor, who nationalised Venezuela\u2019s oil fields two decades ago on an anti-imperialist platform.<\/p>\n
It has amplified fears that the Trump administration is entrenching former Maduro loyalists, like Rodriguez, who have shown no readiness to hold democratic elections eight months after Maduro\u2019s overthrow.<\/p>\n
Trump on Wednesday rebuffed calls from several Republican lawmakers for quick polls in Venezuela.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just don\u2019t think they\u2019re ready yet. You know, it\u2019s very new. We took them out of a dictatorship, and we\u2019re getting along great with the government,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Rodriguez took a similar line, saying there would be \u201can electoral process\u201d when \u201cVenezuela is ready\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chevron and several other global energy companies have signed multibillion-dollar deals to boost Venezuela\u2019s oil output at a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44521,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[28923,1131,28924,322,241,5,10420,36,26998,341,3648,28925,9924],"class_list":["post-44520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-italy","tag-business-and-economy","tag-economy","tag-emerging-markets","tag-energy","tag-europe","tag-italy","tag-latin-america","tag-news","tag-oil-and-gas","tag-united-states","tag-us-canada","tag-us-venezuela-tensions","tag-venezuela"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44520\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}