Venezuela Talks Stall as Chevron's Capital Flows to Guyana
Seven months on from Maduro's removal, no major US oil company has committed fresh capital to Venezuela, and ConocoPhillips says the terms still don't work.
Seven months after Nicolás Maduro's removal, negotiations between Venezuela's interim government and major US energy companies remain deadlocked, with no landmark investment deal in sight, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday (2026-08-03). The gap is not about appetite. It is about terms.5
ConocoPhillips' CEO said publicly that Venezuela's initial steps to attract foreign oil firms are falling well short of what is needed, according to Rigzone's reporting from May (2026-05-21). The recent changes to Venezuela's oil framework have not delivered the legal certainty or fiscal terms that would justify large-scale commitments in a country whose infrastructure has decayed through years of sanctions and mismanagement.3
Chevron is the company most exposed to this impasse. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent placed the firm "obviously at the front of the pack" among investors hoping to profit from Venezuelan oil, and a desire to reopen the industry to American companies shaped President Donald Trump's approach to Caracas. Chevron also stands to benefit from involvement in the sale of 50 million stockpiled barrels, worth perhaps $2 billion, that the US is acquiring from Venezuela. But front-of-the-pack positioning is not a signed contract.1
The Economist reported in May (2026-05-17) that Chevron's production cost per barrel in Venezuela was half again as much as its global average, almost certainly pushed up by its heavy, sour Venezuelan crude output. Pumping that grade at a discount is harder to justify when lighter, sweeter Guyanese barrels are available next door. According to Hess's pre-merger filings, its production cost per Guyanese barrel was less than $7. Chevron completed its $60 billion Hess takeover last year, giving it direct exposure to those assets.2
CEO Mike Wirth said Chevron would invest $7 billion in offshore projects in 2026, with Guyana taking the largest share. None of that budget appears earmarked for Venezuela. The Corpus Christi LNG expansion work Chevron has underway can proceed entirely independently of what happens in Caracas.2
Rystad Energy estimates that reviving Venezuelan production to 2 million barrels per day, a level last attained in 2018, would require annual investments of $12 billion through 2032. Chevron's entire offshore budget for 2026 would not cover that alone, and every dollar sent to Guyana is a dollar not going south.2
ConocoPhillips has its own competing priorities. The company is targeting a $7 billion improvement in free cash flow by 2029, driven by cost-reduction programs, LNG projects and the Willow Project in Alaska, with management estimating those initiatives could expand its production platform by nearly 20% over time. Venezuela would need to offer terms that beat those returns. So far it has not.4
The production data from the second quarter of 2026 underscores the divergence. ExxonMobil led US majors with output of 4.514 million barrels of oil equivalent per day, down from 4.594 million in the first quarter. Chevron's output reached 3.858 million barrels of oil equivalent per day, up from 3.396 million in the second quarter of 2025, helped by the Hess acquisition and record Permian volumes. ConocoPhillips' year-to-date 2026 production came in at 2.278 million barrels of oil equivalent per day, below the 2.391 million barrels recorded for the same period in 2025.6
Exxon is meanwhile pressing ahead in Guyana. Its fifth floating production, storage and offloading vessel, the Uaru project, has set sail with startup on track for the fourth quarter of 2026, adding 250,000 barrels per day of capacity. Exxon's upstream earnings rose from $5.737 billion in the first quarter to $7.927 billion in the second, driven by record Permian production of more than 1.8 million barrels of oil equivalent per day and the absence of disruptions in Kazakhstan. Venezuela is not part of that story.6
ICE Brent crude front-month stood at $95.24 per barrel as of (2026-09-02), with WTI at $90.69. Prices high enough to give oil companies cash flow to explore Venezuelan opportunities also raise the opportunity cost of locking capital into a country with uncertain legal recourse and unresolved expropriation history.1
The 50 million stockpiled barrels the US is acquiring from Venezuela remain the most concrete near-term transaction. If that deal closes cleanly, it could establish a template for how payments, lifting rights and protections might function in a broader production agreement. If it stalls, the distance between Chevron's front-of-the-pack positioning and an actual signed deal will only grow wider.1