The United States government is contemplating an approach made to it by the oil giant Chevron, seeking to allow it to accept oil from cash-strapped Venezuela as payment for services rendered to that country’s oil industry, Reuters reported earlier this week.
The report stated that representatives of the US oil company had engaged American diplomats and representatives of Venezuela’s political opposition. The meeting, reportedly, was being treated as a milestone in Chevron’s lobby for a change in its licence to operate in Venezuela in a manner that circumvented US sanctions targeting that country’s oil industry.
Under the Trump administration, the broader US sanctions notwithstanding, Chevron had enjoyed what a Reuters report described as “trading privileges that permitted the company to take and export Venezuelan oil to recoup dividends and debt from joint ventures with state-run oil company PDVSA.” The arrangement had reportedly held good until mid-2020 and had allowed Chevron to trade up to “1 million to 2 million barrels per month of Venezuelan crude,” though it had been suspended during one of a number of periodic surges of pressure by Washington targeting the Maduro administration.
And while the Trump administration’s pressures had taken a toll on Venezuela’s oil industry, support from Iran in helping to boost shipments abroad, had staved off the worst effects of US pressures.
Chevron, having continued to provide critical technical support to Venezuela’s oil industry, is now reportedly owed by the Venezuelan government what Reuters says are “hundreds of millions of dollars” from joint ventures undertaken between the company and the state-run PDVSA oil company.
Reuters recently quoted “a US State Department spokesman” as saying that Washington’s continued sanctions seek to “deny the Maduro regime revenue streams that finance repression and line the pockets of regime officials, as well as protect the US financial system from exposure to corrupt and illicit financial flows.” Language like this coming out of Washington, coupled with the Maduro administration’s continued moves to cement ties with Iran – one of Washington’s implacable enemies – are believed not to augur well for an earlier mending of fences between the two countries.
Beyond the international dimension to the US/Venezuela impasse, Reuters says that the Biden administration is also seeking ways to encourage President Maduro to return to the negotiating table with the political opposition.
