Mindful that as the crisis emanating from Russia’s hostilities in Ukraine and the attendant incremental threat to global oil supplies could worsen in the years ahead, the Joe Biden Administration, days ago, loosened the shackles that had bound Venezuela’s economy for more than three years and crippling the country’s economy, by granting the United States oil company Chevron Corp. a licence to resume work alongside Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, PDVSA. It is a move that is expected to breathe new life into both the Venezuelan economy and the society as a whole.
US-imposed sanctions had, over the past several years gradually closed the door to western oil companies operating in Venezuela. Chevron Corp. had, up until earlier this year, been the last man standing. The war in Ukraine and the west’s dependence on Russian oil supplies rendered the Biden administration increasingly jittery and one began to sense the climate of jingoism that had attended relations between the two capitals was beginning to metamorphose into spurts of diplomatic activity that saw negotiating teams from Washington traveling to Caracas. It turned out that it was the breaking of the political deadlock between the US and Venezuela over the stalled talks between the country’s rival political factions on ending what has been an intractable power-related impasse.
