Chevron, Eni, and GE Vernova Sign Agreements to Expand Venezuelan Oil Output and Rebuild Power Grid

The Venezuelan government and state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) have executed a series of multibillion-dollar contracts with Western energy corporations, granting Chevron and Eni expanded operational control over the Orinoco Oil Belt. Signed on September 2 at the Miraflores Palace in Caracas, the agreements migrate existing joint ventures into a new legal framework under Venezuela's recently amended Hydrocarbons Law. The revised terms allow foreign operators greater flexibility to export crude, manage finances, and collect sales proceeds, effectively unwinding decades of state-dominated operational constraints.[2][3]

Chevron, which has maintained a presence in Venezuela for over a century, committed to investing $7 billion over the next five years. The California-based major aims to more than double its current output to approximately 600,000 barrels per day by 2031. Under the new terms, Chevron's Petroindependencia joint venture was awarded additional acreage in the Carabobo-1 and Carabobo-2 South fields, expanding its footprint in the heavy crude region. "Chevron's history in Venezuela spans more than a century, and our expanded position reflects our confidence in the country's deep resource potential and its ability to compete for investments within our portfolio for decades," Chevron CEO Mike Wirth said in a statement.[1][2][4]

Italian energy major Eni finalized a 25-year strategic contract to become the exclusive operator of the Junín 5 heavy oil field. Moving away from the traditional PDVSA-majority joint venture model, Eni will assume full technical and commercial management of the block, which holds an estimated 35 billion barrels of certified oil in place. The company plans to invest $1.5 billion annually to increase the field's production to 400,000 barrels per day by the end of the decade.[2]

The oil expansion is heavily dependent on resolving Venezuela's chronic power shortages, which have historically acted as a binding constraint on crude output. To address this bottleneck, PDVSA and the state electricity company Corpoelec signed strategic alliances with GE Vernova. The U.S. power company will rehabilitate electrical infrastructure specifically serving the petroleum industry and work to strengthen the broader national grid.[2][5]

GE Vernova's mandate involves a phased rollout of infrastructure upgrades across the country's generation and transmission networks. The work will target thermal and hydroelectric facilities, as well as key substations, providing the baseline energy reliability required to extract and process extra-heavy crude from the Orinoco Belt. Without a stable power supply, the ambitious production targets set by the oil majors would remain mathematically impossible to achieve.[5]

The corporate agreements follow a broader bilateral arrangement announced by the U.S. administration in late August, which established a framework for American and European firms to re-enter the Venezuelan market. U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright attended the signing ceremony in Caracas alongside Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodríguez, signaling Washington's backing for the privatization and rehabilitation efforts as a mechanism to stabilize global energy supplies.[1][2]

Beyond the primary signatories, the September agreements also included contracts with smaller operators. Colombia's GeoPark is negotiating to develop the Baré heavy oil field, while investors such as KEO Capital and Primavera secured production-sharing agreements for blocks in eastern Venezuela. Together, the deals represent the most significant influx of foreign capital into the country's energy sector since the 2007 nationalizations.[3]

The immediate focus now shifts to the deployment of capital and the arrival of specialized equipment. With the legal frameworks signed and the electrical rehabilitation mapped out, Chevron and Eni will begin mobilizing engineering teams to the Orinoco Belt in the coming weeks, testing whether the new regulatory environment can successfully reverse years of underinvestment and operational decay.[1][4]