Chevron to invest $7 billion expanding Venezuelan oil production to 600,000 barrels per day

Chevron announced on September 2 a deal to expand oil production in Venezuela, committing over $7 billion in investment over the next five years to increase output to approximately 600,000 barrels per day, according to NPR reporting. The expansion more than doubles Chevron's current Venezuelan production, per CBS News reporting. Chevron, the largest foreign oil operator in Venezuela, will expand operations in the Orinoco Belt, where much of Venezuela's oil reserves lie. The company has been assigned rights to develop the adjacent Carabobo 1 and Carabobo-2-South-A areas, per CBS News reporting. According to NPR's reporting, Chevron CEO Mike Wirth stated: "Our expanded position reflects our confidence in the country's deep resource potential and its ability to compete for investment within our portfolio for decades." The announcement follows a separate agreement the Trump administration brokered on August 28 with a Venezuelan private oil firm, North American Blue Energy Partners (NABEP), run by Venezuelan executive Alejandro Betancourt. Under that deal, NABEP received 100-year concessions to drill in 17 oil fields containing about 65 billion barrels, roughly one-fifth of Venezuela's total proven oil reserves, according to CBS News reporting. Venezuela holds the world's largest proven oil reserves, containing more than 303 billion barrels of crude oil according to OPEC's 2025 Annual Statistical Bulletin, per CBS News reporting. Saudi Arabia holds the second-largest reserves at 267 billion barrels. Production costs in Venezuela are low: it costs Chevron about $20 per barrel to produce oil there, according to CBS News reporting. However, Chevron and the administration face steep obstacles. Much of Venezuela's oil infrastructure has been in disrepair for more than a decade. Alejandro Velasco, a New York University historian specializing in Venezuela and Latin America, told NPR that corruption and low oil prices in the early 2000s contributed to the dilapidated state of the facilities. According to NPR reporting, Dan Alamariu, chief geopolitical strategist at investment advisory firm Alpine Macro, stated: "Meaningful new barrels are years away. Much of Venezuelan oil is extra-heavy crude sitting behind decayed infrastructure, so significant output growth will require substantial investment and time." Jorge Leon, head of geopolitical analysis at Rystad Energy, told NPR that restoring Venezuelan oil production to 1990s-era levels would require more than a decade and $183 billion. The expansion also represents a contrarian bet within the U.S. oil industry. ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods called Venezuela "uninvestable" at a White House meeting in January, according to NPR reporting. ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips left Venezuela in 2007 after then-President Hugo Chavez renegotiated contracts with international companies and have not returned. Chevron first established a presence in Venezuela in the 1920s and operates through joint ventures including Petroindependencia and Petropiar S.A., which oversee extra-heavy oil projects in the Orinoco Belt, and Petroboscan S.A., located in Zulia State in Western Venezuela, per CBS News reporting. According to CBS News reporting, Chevron CEO Mike Wirth also stated: "With improved terms and additional acreage, we are strengthening a portfolio that we believe can deliver attractive low-cost oil growth, support energy supply and create differentiated long-term value." President Trump said the Venezuela deal will help lower U.S. gasoline prices while refilling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which has dropped to historically low levels, per CBS News reporting.