US Oil Companies Are Nearing a Deal to Revive Venezuela’s Broken Energy Industry

Aug 28, 2026 5:00 PM
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US Oil Companies Are Nearing a Deal to Revive Venezuela’s Broken Energy Industry
AP Photo/Alan Diaz

Chevron, alongside several other American energy companies, are reportedly nearing agreements to expand oil drilling and related operations in Venezuela, eight months after the United States removed the country’s socialist dictator, Nicolás Maduro. 

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The negotiations could give American companies access to more than a dozen producing Venezuelan oil fields holding an estimated 90 billion barrels of proven reserves. The prospective agreements would allow U.S. firms to drill, produce, upgrade, and export Venezuelan crude, potentially strengthening long-term supply for the United States while opening the country’s vast oil resources to greater private-sector development.

If the agreement is finalized, as officials reportedly hope it will be during Energy Secretary Chris Wright’s expected trip to Caracas next week, it would be a positive development for both the United States and Venezuela. 

For Washington, it would provide some leverage over Venezuela’s shift away from its tyranny government and command economy that hollowed out the country under Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro. The deal could also give the United States long-term access to Venezuelan crude while allowing American energy companies to bring private capital, expertise, and production discipline back to one of the world’s most resource-rich nations.

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For Venezuela, expanded investment by American oil companies could help restore an industry devastated by years of nationalization, corruption, and socialist mismanagement. The country has the natural resources to once again become a major oil exporter, but it needs the capital, technical capacity, and freer market conditions to use them. Venezuela is also reportedly considering leaving OPEC, a move that would further signal a break with the cartel-driven economic model that has defined its oil policy for decades.

"It would be great news if American companies invest in Venezuelan oil fields and increase oil production, that would lower global oil prices and American gasoline prices would fall," Daniel Di Martino, a Venezuelan immigrant, economist, and fellow at the Manhattan Institute told Townhall. "But this is all still up in the air and I will believe the announcements when I see the rigs and equipment functioning."

"So far, there is great uncertainty because no agreement will matter after Trump leaves office if the current regime stays in power since they know that Democrats won't do anything about protecting oil companies in Venezuela," he said. "This is why the transition to democracy in Venezuela is the only guarantee of economic recovery."

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So far, there has been no announcement that the country plans to hold democratic elections. But a deal could help move the process forward by giving the government an incentive to loosen its control over the economy and begin rebuilding a country that fell from being among the world’s wealthiest to one defined by economic collapse, mass emigration, and widespread poverty.

Editor’s Note: Thanks to President Trump and his administration’s bold leadership, we are once again respected on the world stage, and our enemies are being put on notice.

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News Topics ENERGY | TRADE | VENEZUELA
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