Venezuela’s Oil Flows Again — but Washington Holds the Tap

Six weeks after a US military operation captured Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s economy is being rebuilt around a simple bargain: American oil companies get access to the world’s largest crude reserves, and Washington controls where the money goes. It is not a free market — it is a supervised reopening, and the supervisor is the US Treasury. This is part of The Rio Times’ daily coverage of Venezuela affairs and Latin American financial news.

Last week, the Treasury authorized Chevron, Shell, BP, Repsol, and Eni to resume full operations in Venezuela. A second license opened the door for any company to negotiate new oil and gas investments, though deals with Russian, Chinese, or Iranian entities remain banned. Energy Secretary Chris Wright, visiting the Orinoco Belt, said Chevron alone could ramp up to 300,000 barrels a day. Total crude sales since Maduro’s ouster have already hit $1 billion (~R$6 billion), with another $5 billion expected in coming months.

Acting President Delcy Rodríguez signed a new hydrocarbon law on January 29 that ends state oil company PDVSA’s monopoly and allows private firms to control production and sales — reversing the cornerstone of Chávez-era economic policy. Her government is also pushing reforms on mining, telecoms, and AI to lure investment. Caracas-based consultant Asdrúbal Oliveros notes that the post-2019 Maduro government was already more pragmatic than ideological with the private sector — the question now is whether that pragmatism can produce real institutional reform.

The financial picture is daunting. Venezuela’s total external debt reaches an estimated $150–170 billion, including roughly $60 billion in defaulted bonds. Prices have surged to around 40 cents on the dollar, but Citi analysts describe any restructuring as a “multi-track, multi-year” process, comparable in complexity to Greece’s 2012 crisis. China, which holds $13–15 billion in oil-backed loans, could cooperate — or block the process entirely.

Meanwhile, the banking system barely functions as a financial intermediary — credit is virtually nonexistent after years of triple-digit inflation. Infrastructure has crumbled: refineries run intermittently, power grids fail, and nearly eight million Venezuelans have emigrated. The oil may be flowing again, but the country that surrounds it needs everything rebuilt. The open question is whether a government born from a US military intervention, led by a former Maduro loyalist, and watched by both Wall Street and Beijing can pull that off.

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