Caracas. Venezuelan Oil Minister Rafael Tellechea described a meeting with the management of US multinational oil company Chevron in Caracas as a success. Thursday’s meeting, which was also attended by Chevron Venezuela President Javier La Rosa, served to “drive forward the strengthening of oil production,” the PDVSA chief said on Twitter.
The government of President Nicolás Maduro and the US company signed contracts on December 2 that ensure the continuity of Chevron’s oil production activities in the South American country.
The agreements, established by Venezuela’s constitution and laws regulating national petroleum activity, were aimed at continuing production and development activities in this energy sector, government officials said at the time.
Chevron has been operating in Venezuela for 100 years and has interests in four joint ventures, two producing in the Maracaibo Basin in Zulia State and two producing in the Orinoco Oil Belt.
Washington imposed financial sanctions on PDVSA in 2017. These punitive measures were exacerbated by the 2019 oil embargo, as well as secondary sanctions and other threats throughout 2020.
In late November 2022, the US Treasury Department approved a limited sanctions waiver for Chevron. On January 3 of this year, the group shipped crude oil to the USA for the first time since 2018.
Maduro had to at one Presseconference says the licenses granted to Chevron are a step in the right direction, “even if they are not sufficient for what Venezuela is demanding, namely the complete lifting of all criminal sanctions against the oil industry”. He noted that the entire Venezuelan economy remains subject to sanctions that violate the country’s right to free trade and production. “This is 21st century colonialism,” stressed the President.