Key Points
The scale of Venezuela’s unpaid energy obligations to its European partners came into sharper focus Tuesday when Eni disclosed that PDVSA owed it $3.3 billion at year-end, including roughly $1 billion in accumulated interest. The PDVSA debt figure, published in the Italian company’s annual report, represents a dramatic increase from the $2.3 billion Eni reported just six months earlier, The Rio Times, the Latin American financial news outlet, reports.
How the PDVSA Debt Accumulated
Eni and Spain’s Repsol jointly operate the Perla offshore gas field through the Cardón IV venture — Venezuela’s only active offshore gas project. PDVSA purchases the field’s output under a dollar-denominated contract, using the gas primarily for domestic electricity generation.
For years, PDVSA compensated both companies with crude oil shipments rather than cash, a workaround that kept the arrangement viable despite Venezuela’s chronic dollar shortage. That mechanism collapsed in March 2025 when Washington revoked the licenses that had allowed foreign firms to receive PDVSA oil. With no way to collect payment in any form, the unpaid bills mounted rapidly.
The sanctions that created this crisis followed a familiar escalation pattern. Washington first imposed oil-sector restrictions in 2019, then briefly eased them through general licenses that allowed companies like Chevron to operate and export Venezuelan crude. When the Trump administration revoked those licenses in March 2025 and added a 25% tariff on countries importing Venezuelan oil, it severed the last payment channels available to Eni and Repsol.
Repsol disclosed last month that Venezuela owed it €4.55 billion ($5.28 billion). Together, the two European companies are claiming roughly $8.6 billion from PDVSA for gas that powered Venezuela’s electrical grid while the companies received nothing in return.
Sanctions Easing Opens a Path to Recovery
Eni struck an optimistic note in its filing, saying recent developments have improved the likelihood of recovering its claims. In February, the U.S. Treasury authorized Eni, Repsol, Chevron, BP, and Shell to resume full operations in Venezuela. Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi said at the time that PDVSA could once again pay for gas with oil, calling the change “a big upside.”
Venezuela’s partial reform of its hydrocarbon law — which ended PDVSA’s monopoly and opened the oil sector to private companies — further improved the outlook. Eni said it has been in discussions with U.S. authorities about participating in the broader reactivation of Venezuela’s petroleum industry, signaling ambitions that extend beyond simply collecting what it is owed.
What $8.6 Billion in Claims Means for Venezuela
The combined Eni-Repsol debt illustrates the hidden cost of years of sanctions and mismanagement at PDVSA. Venezuela holds the world’s largest proven oil reserves at 303 billion barrels, yet production collapsed from roughly 3 million barrels per day in the late 1990s to under one million before the recent sanctions-driven recovery.
The European claims are just one layer of PDVSA’s broader debt burden. Venezuela’s total external obligations are estimated at $150–170 billion, and any restructuring will require cooperation from creditors ranging from Wall Street bondholders to Chinese state banks holding $13–15 billion in oil-backed loans.
For Eni and Repsol, the question is whether the current diplomatic thaw translates into actual cash flow. The Perla field continues producing gas that Venezuela needs to keep its lights on, giving the European companies leverage that few other creditors possess. If oil-for-gas payments resume at scale, the $8.6 billion hole could begin to shrink — but resolving debts of this magnitude will likely take years, not months.