(World Oil) – U.S. President Donald Trump said he plans to revoke an oil license to operate in Venezuela, citing the country’s failure to take back migrants to the U.S. as quickly as it promised.
The U.S. president referred to a concession agreement from November 2022, which would match the date that Chevron Corp. was granted a license to produce and sell oil in Venezuela despite sanctions against the government of President Nicolás Maduro. Under the terms of the license, Chevron would have to exit Venezuela by the end of July.
The move represents an intensification of U.S. restrictions on the South American nation after a contested election that extended Maduro’s reign and a sweeping crackdown on his political opponents. Losing Chevron would be a setback for the economic recovery in Venezuela, which has boosted oil production above 1 million barrels a day with the U.S. oil giant’s help.
“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 in a social media post.
Venezuela’s information ministry and Chevron didn’t immediately reply to requests for comment.
Dollar bonds from Venezuela and its state-oil company fell to the day’s low on the announcement, according to indicative pricing data collected by Bloomberg.
For Chevron, the revocation marks an interruption in the oil explorer’s century-long history in Venezuela, where it endured political convulsions, military coups, civil unrest and economic collapse. Chevron shares fell less than 1% in New York.
Chevron is the only major U.S. oil producer operating in Venezuela and was producing more than 200,000 barrels a day from its share of ventures in the country as of mid-2024. The Biden administration granted Chevron a wider range of production and crude sales starting in 2022, but the oil giant has said it wasn’t committing additional capital due to the short-term nature of its license.
The company’s efforts in Venezuela were primarily focused on repairing wells and facilities and recouping debt owed by the government-owned oil company.
