Chevron negotiates expansion of oil operations in Venezuela

According to a report published by Bloomberg on August 28, 2026, the American corporation Chevron is in advanced negotiations to expand its oil operations in Venezuela. The talks take place against a backdrop in which the US government seeks to widen its influence over the energy sector of the Caribbean country.

The core of this possible agreement lies in a debt-offset mechanism. Instead of a conventional commercial operation in which the Venezuelan state receives direct cash income from the sale of crude, the American company extracts and exports the oil to collect the liabilities the country has accumulated with it. This scheme of payment in kind allows the multinational to recover capital, but it sharply limits the immediate cash flow to Venezuela's public coffers.

These negotiations are framed within the recent decisions of the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which on August 27 issued new guidelines on operating licenses in Venezuelan territory. The sanctions framework imposed in previous years has conditioned the activity of foreign companies in the country, forcing them to operate under specific and restrictive authorizations to avoid international penalties.

For the Venezuelan economy, the expansion of these activities under the debt-payment arrangement means that, although extraction activity may rise, the resources generated do not translate directly into fiscal revenue usable for public spending or social investment. Going forward, the question is whether this model of exceptional licenses extends to other international firms or remains an exclusive channel for specific corporations.

Archive, 2012. El Palito refinery, in Carabobo, Venezuela. Photo: Marive Casimiro, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.