Green light for Eni and four majors to deal in Venezuelan oil

A little over a month after the fall of dictator Nicolás Maduro and the ascension of President Delcy Rodríguez to the presidency of Venezuela, the first signs of a revival in the South American country's oil sector have arrived. Five major oil companies, the US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (Ofac) has announced, have received licences to operate in Venezuela from the US authorities. They are Bp, Chevron, Eni, Repsol and Shell.

Now the Venezuelan market is reopened after the Venezuelan state oil company Pdvsa refused to sell oil to companies without individual US licences, restricting exports. Venezuela is dependent on oil export revenues and needs the proceeds of sales to run its government. The general licences are intended to exempt companies from US sanctions on Venezuela's oil industry, which Washington eased after the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

The US Administration's measure makes it possible to restart international transactions with five groups capable of absorbing Caracas' production. Already in early January, after the fall and extradition of Maduro, the US Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright, had announced that Washington would control Venezuelan oil sales 'indefinitely' and US President Donald Trump had reported that Venezuela's interim leaders had agreed to a US-managed crude oil marketing of 30-50 million barrels. In short, as announced by the US, 'we will deal with the sale of the crude that comes out of Venezuela, first of all this stored oil that has accumulated, and then, indefinitely in the future, we will sell the production that comes out of Venezuela on the market', Wright had said. Now those intentions have materialised into operating licences.

Those arrived yesterday are on the one hand an authorisation to resume operations, which requires royalty payments to go through the Foreign Government Deposit Fund, and on the other a licence allowing the companies to enter into contracts with Pdvsa, the Venezuelan state oil company, for new investments in Venezuelan oil and gas, subject to permits from the US Treasury.

The size of the assets in Venezuela by the five majors are still being assessed but the country, with over 303 billion barrels, has the world's largest oil reserves. Thus on Wall Street a new wave of buying started on Chevron, which is up more than 20 per cent since the beginning of 2026 and has reached a market capitalisation of $368 billion.