Venezuela’s National Assembly on Monday began discussing a proposal to extend until 2047 a contract between national oil company PDVSA and U.S. company Chevron to operate a joint venture in the country’s largest production area.
PDVSA and Chevron have four joint ventures in Venezuela that produce some 200,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude.
The companies are demanding an expansion for Petropiar in the Orinoco belt, the partnership that produces the most oil, Venezuelan Deputy Oil Minister Elianny Palencia said during a presentation to the National Assembly in Caracas.
The Petropiar extension will apply to the period 2033-2047, once the current association expires, as part of a plan to drill up to 386 wells in the region, according to the document presented at the National Assembly, seen by Reuters.
PDVSA and Chevron won approval last year for similar 15-year extensions for two other joint ventures. The expansion of the fourth joint venture is not yet planned.
All joint ventures produce and export crude under a license granted by the US Treasury Department to Chevron in late 2022, as an exemption from US sanctions against the South American country. But additional investment is still needed to reach production levels before oil sanctions were first imposed in 2019.
Last week, Oil Minister Pedro Tellechea said Venezuela’s crude production was approaching 1 million bpd. In 2023, the country’s production averaged 783,000 bpd and reached 864,000 bpd in the first quarter, according to figures provided to OPEC.
