Chevron to operate Venezuela’s PetroPiar upgrader
US oil major Chevron will resume operating the upgrading unit at its PetroPiar extra heavy crude oil project in Venezuela’s Orinoco oil belt, a significant expansion of private-sector participation in the sector, a company source told Argus.
By Argus Media – Carlos Camacho
Dec 06, 2022
This follows the US easing some sanctions in late November to allow Chevron to sell crude from its Venezuela joint ventures as a reward to Caracas for agreeing to resume talks with the political opposition.
Chevron did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
State-owned PdV and Chevron last week signed four new contracts for existing oil production joint ventures – PetroBoscan, PetroPiar, PetroIndependiente and PetroIndependencia – but neither party released details of the contracts. Chevron holds 30pc of Petropiar.
This will be the first time a foreign oil company has been allowed to operate an upgrader since the 2006-2007 nationalization of the energy industry carried out by former president Hugo Chávez. Analysts expect President Nicolás Maduro to make even more changes in how the country operates with international oil companies.
“That was what we were expecting, that Chevron acquires control of the management of the JVs … administrative control including bidding [acquisitions],” one industry analyst told Argus.
Chevron will meet with its Venezuela partners and gas industry representatives Wednesday and Thursday in Caracas, one of the parties invited to a meeting told Argus.
Chevron’s sales from its joint ventures with PdV amounted to 42,000 b/d in 2019, the last full year before Washington tightened restrictions on the terms of US companies operating in that country. Chevron’s production from PetroPiar stood at about 29,000 b/d in September, and represented essentially all of its output in the country, according to a PdV production report. Chevron’s output in Venezuela had been 100,000 b/d in 2017.
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