Chevron Runs Venezuela at 280,000 Barrels a Day as US Majors Return Under Trump

Energy: Venezuela

Chevron’s Venezuela Comeback: 280,000 Barrels a Day and Trump’s Endorsement

Seven months after US forces captured Nicolás Maduro, Chevron has turned Venezuela into one of its fastest-growing production stories, and President Trump wants credit for it.

Chevron’s joint ventures with PDVSA now produce more crude than any other foreign operator in Venezuela.

Chevron’s Venezuela Resurgence

Chevron’s second-quarter 2026 earnings call, held as Maria Bartiromo’s interview with CEO Mike Wirth aired on Fox Business, gave the clearest picture yet of how far the company’s Venezuelan business has come since Nicolás Maduro’s January 2026 detention. CFO Eimear Bonner told analysts that Chevron’s three joint ventures with state oil company PDVSA — Petroboscán, Petropiar and Petroindependencia — pumped 280,000 barrels per day in the first half of 2026, a 15 percent jump in six months, according to S&P Global Platts and Argus Media.

“We’ve grown production over the last few years from 40,000 [b/d] to 250,000 [b/d],” Bonner said on the earnings webcast, adding that Chevron expects to grow output “up to 50%” further between now and the end of 2028, per the transcript carried by S&P Global Platts. On the call itself, Wirth described the company’s century-long presence in the country and said “everything with Venezuela operationally is going well,” according to the transcript published by The Motley Fool.

That growth has made Chevron the largest private oil producer operating in Venezuela today, ahead of every other foreign company, at a time when the country’s national output has recovered to about 1.21 million barrels per day, up from roughly 800,000 bpd in late 2025, according to Ministry of Hydrocarbons data reviewed by S&P Global Platts. Chevron’s April 2026 move to raise its stake in the Petroindependencia joint venture from 35.8 percent to 49 percent through an asset swap with PDVSA, reported by The Rio Times, underscored how aggressively the company has been consolidating its position.

Trump’s Endorsement

President Trump made Chevron’s Venezuela comeback the centerpiece of a Truth Social post published on August 3, 2026, at 9:50 am EDT, hours after Wirth’s Fox Business interview aired. “Mike Wirth, Chairman and CEO of Chevron, just gave, in an interview with the fabulous Maria Bartiromo, all of the reasons that his company is doing so well,” Trump wrote, according to the archived post on Trump’s Truth and corroborated by Bloomberg.

Trump argued that Wirth had failed to credit his administration, writing that “without the genius, foresight, strength, and stability, of the TRUMP Administration, the Oil Industry, and our Country itself, would be DEAD!” He then turned to Venezuela directly: “As an example, they threw Mike and Chevron out of Venezuela, but now they’re back, far bigger and stronger than ever before, expecting to make a fortune,” he wrote, adding “that goes for other Oil Companies as well,” per the same post reviewed by Trump’s Truth.

The post closed with a demand that oil companies cut retail gasoline prices — “Get your consumer (retail!) Oil Prices DOWN, NOW!” — extending a pressure campaign Trump began in late June 2026, when he set a $2.50-a-gallon target and threatened a Justice Department price-gouging probe against Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell and BP, according to reporting carried on TradingView. The post came the same week Chevron reported a record $12 billion quarterly profit — about $132 million a day — driven partly by crude and refining margins tied to the Strait of Hormuz closure during the US-Iran conflict, per Bloomberg.

US Treasury Licensing Framework

Chevron’s expansion rests on a licensing architecture the US Treasury built in stages after Maduro’s capture. On January 9, 2026, Trump signed Executive Order 14373, “Safeguarding Venezuelan Oil Revenue for the Good of the American and Venezuelan People,” which created the Foreign Government Deposit Funds that now sit at the center of every Venezuela oil transaction, according to the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. Weeks later, OFAC issued General License 46, letting “established US entities” trade Venezuelan-origin oil provided payments to Venezuela’s government or PDVSA are deposited into that fund rather than paid directly to Caracas, per OFAC’s own release and a Morgan Lewis legal analysis.

The framework widened significantly in mid-February 2026, when OFAC issued General License 50A, authorizing Chevron alongside BP, Eni, Shell and Repsol to resume oil and gas sector operations with PDVSA, according to Enerdata and MercoPress. A companion license lets companies negotiate fresh investment contracts, though each one still needs separate OFAC sign-off, and the licenses bar any transactions tied to entities from Russia, Iran, China, Cuba or North Korea.

The payment mechanics are strict: royalties and taxes owed to Venezuela’s government or PDVSA cannot be wired directly to Caracas. They must land in the Foreign Government Deposit Fund or another account designated by the Treasury Department, a condition that OFAC has reiterated across subsequent licenses through at least June 2026, according to Rigzone and The Rio Times. Energy Secretary Chris Wright framed the intent bluntly in January: “We will be responsible for marketing the crude oil from Venezuela,” he told CNBC, describing a system in which Washington, not Caracas, controls the proceeds of Venezuela’s oil sales for the foreseeable future, per CNBC.

Other US and European Majors

Chevron is no longer alone. Repsol signed an agreement on April 16, 2026 to regain operational control of the Petroquiriquire joint venture, targeting 50 percent gross production growth within 12 months and a tripling within three years, according to a Repsol press release. Eni reached a deal in late April to restart the Junín-5 project in the Orinoco Belt, a field holding an estimated 35 billion barrels of oil in place, per Rigzone, and BNamericas reported on August 3, 2026 that Chevron and Eni were “closing in on new Venezuela oil contracts,” citing Chevron’s 15 percent output increase this year, per BNamericas.

Shell finalized oil and gas agreements with Venezuela’s government in March 2026 covering offshore natural gas and onshore ventures, according to Reuters, while BP signed a memorandum of understanding in early May to develop the offshore Cocuina-Manakin gas field and explore the Loran field along the maritime border with Trinidad and Tobago, opening a permanent Caracas office in the process, per Reuters. France’s Maurel & Prom rounds out the group of companies named on General License 50A.

ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips remain the conspicuous holdouts. Exxon was reportedly in advanced talks by May 2026 to acquire rights across as many as six Venezuelan oil fields, a move The New York Times linked partly to Chevron’s Petroindependencia stake increase making it “untenable” for Exxon to cede ground to its main domestic rival, according to The New York Times. But both companies are still pressing for durable legal safeguards and a path to recover billions in outstanding claims from Venezuela’s 2007-era nationalizations before committing new capital, per Bloomberg.

Long-Term Strategic Stakes

The scale of what’s being rebuilt is enormous. Venezuela’s national oil production peaked at roughly 3.4 to 3.5 million barrels per day in 1998, and by some measures reached as high as 3.7 million bpd in 1970, when the country ranked among the world’s largest producers, according to the Baker Institute and Elcano Royal Institute. By December 2025, output had collapsed to under 900,000 bpd. Even after the 2026 rebound to 1.21 million bpd, the country remains at roughly a third of its historic peak, leaving enormous headroom for growth if investment continues.

For Chevron, Venezuela remains a relatively small slice of a global portfolio that produces nearly 2 million barrels of oil equivalent per day internationally alone, but the country’s heavy and extra-heavy Orinoco Belt crude fits neatly into Chevron’s US Gulf Coast refining network, which is built to process exactly that kind of oil. Wirth has said the company’s century in Venezuela, dating to 1923, gives it operating know-how few rivals can match, and CFO Bonner has stressed that further growth requires no new Chevron capital — only “favorable terms” from the Venezuelan government, according to Talento Petrolero’s August 2026 Energy Monitor.

The bigger question is whether Chevron’s playbook becomes the template for the rest of the industry. Economist Asdrúbal Oliveros projects Venezuela’s total 2026 oil revenues at roughly $30 billion, a sum that would flow disproportionately toward whichever companies move fastest, per Talento Petrolero. With Repsol, Eni, Shell and BP all racing to lock in production-sharing terms and Exxon and ConocoPhillips still negotiating from the sidelines, Chevron’s early mover advantage — the one Trump celebrated on Truth Social — could shape the distribution of Venezuela’s oil wealth for years to come.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much oil is Chevron producing in Venezuela right now?

Chevron’s three joint ventures with PDVSA — Petroboscán, Petropiar and Petroindependencia — produced about 280,000 barrels per day as of the company’s second-quarter 2026 earnings report, up 15 percent over the prior six months, according to S&P Global Platts. That makes Chevron the largest private oil operator in Venezuela.

What exactly did Trump say about Chevron on Truth Social?

In an August 3, 2026 post, Trump wrote that Chevron had been thrown “out of Venezuela, but now they’re back, far bigger and stronger than ever before, expecting to make a fortune,” while criticizing CEO Mike Wirth for not crediting his administration in a Fox Business interview, according to the archived post on Trump’s Truth and reporting by Bloomberg.

Do Chevron’s oil payments go directly to Venezuela’s government?

No. Under US Treasury general licenses, royalty and tax payments owed to Venezuela’s government or PDVSA must be deposited into the Foreign Government Deposit Fund or another Treasury-designated account rather than sent directly to Caracas, a structure established under Executive Order 14373 and detailed by OFAC and law firm Morgan Lewis.