(Oil Price) – PDVSA, the state oil firm of Venezuela, will continue to produce alone crude from its joint ventures with Chevron after the Trump Administration axed the U.S. supermajor’s license to operate in the South American country, Reuters reports, citing a PDVSA document it has seen.
At the end of February, U.S. President Donald Trump canceled a sanction waiver for Chevron that allowed the supermajor to return to Venezuela and become instrumental for the increase of its oil production.
President Trump cited the lack of electoral reform in Venezuela, along with insufficient action on migration.
“We are hereby reversing the concessions that Crooked Joe Biden gave to Nicolás Maduro, of Venezuela, on the oil transaction agreement, dated November 26, 2022, and also having to do with Electoral conditions within Venezuela, which have not been met by the Maduro regime,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Early this month, the U.S. Treasury gave Chevron 30 days to wind down operations and exports from Venezuela by April 3.
Chevron has been exporting heavy crude of about 200,000 barrels per day (bpd) from Venezuela to the U.S. under the sanctions waiver from 2022.
With the waiver now axed, the U.S. supermajor is out of Venezuela and state oil firm PDVSA is planning for operations after Chevron.
The Venezuelan company has drafted three scenarios for after April 3, which include producing between 105,000 and 138,000 bpd of Hamaca heavy crude at the Petropiar site in the Orinoco Belt. This production level would be in line with the output from the past few months, according to the PDVSA document Reuters has seen.
Part of the Hamaca crude will go for domestic refining, while PDVSA plans to export the remaining portion to markets other than the U.S., per the document. PDVSA also seeks to boost the supply of diluents necessary to upgrade the heavy crude to flow via pipelines.
The Venezuelan firm’s main goal is to keep production levels at Petropiar to avoid having to shut the heavy crude upgrader or any oilfields, a source close to PDVSA’s plans told Reuters.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
