Oil giant Chevron confirmed it will expand its operations in Venezuela after President Donald Trump announced an ambitious deal to develop the country’s oil reserves and give the Pentagon a share of the profits. Chevron, the only U.S. oil company with a major presence in Venezuela, said Wednesday that it has been assigned additional areas in the Orinoco Belt, where it has active operations. The company plans to invest more than $7 billion over the next five years, aiming to more than double its current production to around 600,000 barrels per day. “Chevron’s history in Venezuela spans more than a century, and our expanded position reflects our confidence in the country’s deep resource potential,” CEO Mike Wirth said in a prepared statement. Venezuela has the largest proven reserves in the world, totaling more than 303 billion barrels of crude oil, according to OPEC’s 2025 Annual Statistical Bulletin. Saudi Arabia is a distant second with 267 billion barrels. However, because Venezuela’s energy infrastructure is severely degraded and the nation operates under international sanctions, its daily production is just over 1 million barrels, compared to the 10 to 11 million barrels that Saudi Arabia produces each day. The United States produces almost 14 million barrels per day. Chevron, the second-largest U.S. oil company, has had a presence in Venezuela since 1923. “President Trump’s mission in Venezuela is simple. The mission is to bring peace, freedom, opportunity and prosperity to the people of Venezuela,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Wednesday in Caracas, Venezuela. “I believe that the agreements that are signed today (tens of billions of dollars of investment and, ultimately, many thousands of jobs) are fundamental to launching this ball of peace, opportunity and prosperity for everyone in Venezuela.” The White House confirmed Monday that it is partnering with North American Blue Energy Partners, NABEP, as part of Trump’s push to tap into Venezuela’s oil industry. However, the deal has been met with skepticism from energy experts who say it will take years to revive Venezuela’s oil industry, which is in disarray after years of neglect. There are also questions about whether Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, has the authority to grant NABEP 100-year rights to 17 oil fields with reserves of 65 billion barrels, and whether future Venezuelan or US administrations would revoke the agreement. Subscribe to Morning Wire: Our flagship newsletter breaks down the day’s biggest headlines. Venezuela’s constitution states that agreements like the one the United States announced this week must be approved by the National Assembly, which has not happened, wrote Ian Vásquez, vice president of international studies at the Cato Institute. “The agreement lacks legitimacy since it was agreed to with a dictatorship that has clung to power for decades through violence and committing what was probably the largest electoral fraud in the history of Latin America in 2024,” Vásquez wrote. “The agreement was also reached under overwhelming pressure, military and otherwise, from the United States. As such, any future Venezuelan democracy will challenge the agreement, thus undermining confidence in the current agreement,” Wright told reporters Wednesday during a joint news conference with Rodríguez rejecting the criticism. “This is an agreement that represents a great victory and a benefit for the people of the United States of America and a great victory for the people of Venezuela,” he said. “Because what you are going to do is take resources that are underground, that are not helping anyone, and invest capital, money and technology and bring them to the surface to improve the lives of Venezuelans and provide better energy to Americans.” Trump has set his sights on Venezuelan oil since the January capture of then-President Nicolás Maduro and has pushed for American companies to return to the country. “We have Exxon and Chevron. We have our big oil companies,” he said that same month. He suggested again on Monday that other US oil majors were preparing for a comeback, although apart from Chevron, there is no evidence of that. Exxon Mobil CEO Darren Woods said in January that Venezuela “could not be invested.” An Exxon spokesperson said this week that “nothing has changed.” The history of the US oil majors in Venezuela explains the hesitation. Venezuela nationalized its oil industry in 1976 and created the state-owned company Petróleos de Venezuela SA. A second nationalization occurred in 2007, when President Hugo Chávez pushed foreign oil companies to create state-controlled joint ventures and seized the assets of companies that refused. Chevron agreed to form a joint venture. Others, including Exxon and ConocoPhillips, refused and Venezuela kept their assets. Trump has said the deal with Venezuela would “substantially lower” gasoline prices in the United States. However, analysts have repeatedly warned that Venezuela’s crumbling oil infrastructure will require years of restoration work and tens of billions of dollars to resurrect. “It could take 2 to 4 years to bring new greenfield facilities online in the Orinoco region,” Amy Jaffe, director of New York University’s Global Energy, Climate and Sustainability Laboratory, said in an email. “Other places where there are no pipelines and other types of supporting infrastructure could take longer.” Meanwhile, the national average price of a gallon of regular gasoline jumped overnight to $4.12, according to motor club AAA. That’s 93 cents more than it cost this time last year. ____García Cano reported from Caracas. Associated Press writers Aamer Madhani and Collin Binkley in Washington contributed to this report.
