Following the Washington-led removal of Venezuela's previous president, Nicolás Maduro, from office on 3 January this year, U.S. firms are pushing hard to keep increasing oil production from the hydrocarbons giant, in line with President Donald Trump's grand plans for the country within his new world order. The foundation for such output increases is extremely solid, as Venezuela still holds the world's largest proven crude reserves -- roughly 303 billion barrels, or about 17% of the global total. Most of this is extra-heavy crude oil from the Orinoco Belt that requires more technical expertise to handle than lighter grades but is cheaper to lift and often more profitable to process, with the challenge lying in transporting, upgrading, and refining it, not extracting it.
Moreover, of its 14 supergiant oil fields, 11 retain more than half of their original reserves. Once up and running to something approaching full capacity, the country is to play a key role in the 'Americas' geographical sphere -- one of three such regions, as delineated recently in the U.S.'s '2025 National Security Strategy' -- so where are we now in this development arc following comments in the past week or so from U.S. oil and gas giant, Chevron? According to chief financial officer Eimear Bonner, during a recent earnings call, the U.S. supermajor has increased its oil production in Venezuela from 40,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 250,000 bpd over the past few years.
And, based solely on its three current joint ventures in the country, output has risen over just the past six months by 12% year on year to 280,000 bpd. This followed the mid-April announcement of an asset-swap agreement with Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA), under which Chevron received an additional 13.21% interest in the Petroindependencia joint venture, increasing its total stake to 49%. The U.S. firm's other two joint ventures include Petropiar (in which a Chevron subsidiary holds a 30% interest and has the rights to develop the adjacent Ayacucho 8 area in the Orinoco Oil Belt), and Petroindependiente (in which it has a 25.2% non-operated interest in the west of the country).
Looking ahead, Bonner added that Chevron expects its production across Venezuela to rise by 50% between now and the end of 2028, which would bring the total up to 420,000 bpd. Across the country as a whole, July saw average crude oil production by Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA and its foreign partners increase by 20,000 bpd to 1.21 million bpd, according to Ministry of Hydrocarbons data. Nearly all of this is now exported, compared to an average of 847,000 bpd in 2025.
That said, back in the early 2000s, Venezuela's crude production was running at over 3 million barrels per day. Moreover, Chevron is by no means the only oil major actively working with the government to look at other opportunities. Spain's Repsol is the key non-U.S. supermajor currently pushing for major oil output rises, targeting a tripling of production there in the next two or three years, according to a recent comment from chief executive officer Josu Jon Imaz.
The Spanish firm holds 40% of its Petroquiriquire Occidente joint venture with PDVSA and currently produces 45,000 bpd of crude oil, but recently it has amended its operational scope to integrate the Tomoporo and La Ceiba fields into the concession. Repsol also recently signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to assess and develop the Horcón Area southeast of Lake Maracaibo. It links the Barúa and Motatán fields, which Repsol already operates, with the aim of capturing new light crude reserves.
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