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The United States on Saturday allowed the country’s oil giant Chevron Corp. to resume “limited” extraction of natural resources in Venezuela and to export Venezuelan oil, after the Venezuelan government and the opposition alliance reached a deal to break the political stalemate.
Chevron received a six-month license that authorizes the California-based driller to resume petroleum production. It was also allowed to once again import Venezuelan oil into the United States.
However, the just-issued permit, known as General License 41, prevents Venezuela’s state-run oil firm PDVSA from profiting from oil sales by Chevron, according to the Treasury Department.
A senior U.S. administration official told reporters in a briefing that “profits earned will instead go toward repayment of debt to Chevron.”
The Treasury Department said other Venezuela-related sanctions and restrictions imposed by the United States are still in effect.
The United States issued the license on the same day that Venezuela and the opposition Unitary Platform coalition began political talks in Mexico City, where both sides agreed to make efforts to address the Latin American country’s social and humanitarian issues, and to continue talks related to the 2024 elections.
Washington’s recent actions, including a push for talks among political factions in Venezuela and repeated signaling of sanctions relief, have led to speculations that it wanted to increase the pumping of Venezuelan oil to bring down high energy prices that have been affecting U.S. consumers.
The senior administration official denied this, saying that Chevron extracting oil from Venezuela “is not something that is going to impact international oil prices.”
