Pentagon Takes 35% Stake in Venezuela Oil Venture
Pentagon Takes 35% Stake in Venezuela Oil Venture
The News
The government is not putting money in. It is taking a third of the company.
The White House confirmed Monday that the United States is partnering with North American Blue Energy Partners on a new Venezuelan oil company in which the Pentagon would hold a 35% ownership stake, the Associated Press reported. The State Department would have the right to buy 20% of the oil the venture produces, at cost.
The new company would be built on rights granted by Venezuela's acting president, Delcy Rodríguez: 100 years over 17 oil fields holding 65 billion barrels of reserves, per the AP.
A U.S. official who briefed reporters anonymously, under ground rules set by the White House, said the U.S. government is not investing money in the company. Its backing, the official said, will help the venture attract outside investment and ramp up production.
Reactions
The New York Post, in a profile published Tuesday, reported that the 46-year-old oil baron played a crucial role in helping the Trump administration force Nicolás Maduro from power. That account is the Post's, and the administration has not confirmed it in the material reviewed here.
The objections, and who is making them
Analysts quoted by the AP are skeptical on two fronts: that reviving Venezuela's degraded production will take years, and that Rodríguez may not have the legal authority to hand a company century-long rights over the country's fields in the first place. The same analysts question whether a future Venezuelan or American administration would simply tear the agreement up.
CNN reported that the president's stated plan — using the proceeds to replenish America's diminished emergency energy reserves — remains hard to follow, and that the deal is unlikely to bring relief at the pump soon. That is CNN's analysis, not a finding.
The Los Angeles Times ran a column arguing the fine print raises legal and moral questions and does not solve rising prices. It is labeled opinion.
Democrats are moving to stop it. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz said Monday the deal should be halted, WPLG Local 10 reported, and she is among a group of House Democrats opposing what the president has called the biggest oil deal in world history.
What's Next
Chevron is the next shoe
Chevron is expected to announce soon that it will expand its operations in Venezuela, the same U.S. official told reporters. Company officials and Energy Secretary Chris Wright are expected to visit Venezuela on Wednesday, where the investment would be formally unveiled. Chevron did not immediately respond to the AP's request for comment.
More
IBTimes reported that the 35% equity stake sits with the Office of Strategic Capital and is held in NABEP's corporate parent. The Frank has not seen deal text confirming the structure; no text has been publicly released.
Chevron is the second-largest U.S. oil company and the only one with a major presence in Venezuela. Whether other majors follow is an open question, and none has committed publicly.
Who NABEP's owner is
NABEP is owned by Venezuelan businessman Alejandro Betancourt and is already the second-largest operator in Venezuela, per the AP.
Betancourt has faced criminal investigations for alleged money laundering in Spain and Switzerland, according to multiple media reports cited by the AP. No formal charges were ever filed. The administration defended the partnership: the official said Betancourt was vetted and that the administration found "no U.S. laws were violated."
What is not established
No deal text has been released publicly. The venture's financing is not documented in any source reviewed here, and the U.S. official's claim that Washington is contributing no money cannot be checked against a document. Chevron has not itself announced anything. Nothing in the coverage establishes when production would rise, by how much, or what the arrangement would mean for U.S. gasoline prices — and any figure attached to those questions today is a projection, not a fact.
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