Washington, having been instrumental in deploying mostly sanctions to degrade Venezuela’s oil and gas industry, the administration of United States’ President Joe Biden appears to be mindful that it does not preside over the complete collapse of the energy sector of the country believed to possess the asingle largest volume of oil reserves anywhere in the world. To help fix the considerable damage which Washington inflicted on Venezuela’s oil industry, the United States has pressed one of its heavyweight oil and gas companies into service to help keep the sector afloat, a mindfulness of the reality that Venezuela, even with President Nicholas Maduro running the country, is a ‘gift horse’ it would be unwise to look in the mouth.
Reuters disclosed earlier this week that Chevron has been working assiduously to create new drill rigs for Venezuela’s oil sector in a move that is designed to increase the country’s oil output in the shortest possible time. This assignment, the Reuters report says, is proceeding under a six-month license granted to the company by the US administration to better position Venezuela to boost its oil output. Chevron, the Reuters report says, is aiming to add two drilling rigs to the country’s oil recovery inventory early next year in order to increase its oil output to 200,000 bpd by the end of 2024. This would mean adding 65,000 barrels per day (bpd) of Venezuelan oil output by the end of 2024 through Chevron’s major drilling campaign in the country since it ‘cleared’ the restoration, drastically reduced by Washington.
