Wright oversees Chevron and ENI deals in Caracas after Trump’s 65-billion-barrel claim

U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright stood with Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, at the Miraflores Palace on 3 September as oil companies signed contracts that Wright valued at “tens of billions of dollars.” Chevron, Italy’s ENI and GE Vernova were named as counterparties. Wright called the set of deals “critical in starting this ball rolling of peace, opportunity, and prosperity” for Venezuelans.

The ceremony followed President Donald Trump’s announcement on 28 August of what he called “the biggest oil deal in world history.” Trump said the arrangement would give the United States access to 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan crude, about one fifth of the country’s proven reserves, which remain the largest on earth. Rodríguez said on Wednesday that the 28 August agreement had already been concluded and that she hoped it would “translate into benefits for the people of the United States.”

Wright, speaking on CNBC’s Squawk Box, rejected the charge that Washington was seizing the oil. “Absolutely not,” he said when asked if the United States was taking Venezuelan property in violation of the constitution. He said the United States government “will not be the operator or producer of those reserves.” In his account the pact is not even a government-to-government contract. It is, he said, a deal “between the United States government and a Venezuelan company to help develop the resources.”

That company is North American Blue Energy Partners, or NABEP, run by Alejandro Betancourt. The White House confirmed the partnership on 1 September. Reporting around the deal describes a new vehicle in which the Defence Department would hold a 35 percent stake and the State Department would have the right to buy 20 percent of output at cost. The field lease is reported at 100 years and covers 17 large blocks. Betancourt, a former associate of Hugo Chávez, has faced money-laundering inquiries in Spain and Switzerland.

Chevron had earlier put a $7 billion value on its plan to develop two extra fields in the Orinoco Belt and said it expected to more than double its Venezuelan output in five years. Wright said Venezuelan oil exports were already up 50 percent and total production up 25 percent eight months into the administration, and that the country was ahead of schedule. He told KOMO that drivers might see lower pump prices this autumn if blending rules ease and if barrels also arrive from Alaska and the Gulf.

The production gap Wright cited is the core of the commercial case. Venezuela holds roughly 12 to 15 percent of global oil reserves and just over 1 percent of global output. Years of underinvestment, sanctions and the decay of PDVSA’s kit left wells idle while Chinese and Russian traders took what barrels still moved. The White House has framed the new contracts as a way to lock those fields away from Beijing and Moscow and to buy crude “at cost reliably.”

The political case is harder. Nicolás Maduro is in New York fighting a drug indictment and has asked a federal judge to dismiss the case on head-of-state immunity. Rodríguez is running the palace. Any successor government could try to unwind a 100-year lease signed under U.S. pressure. Wright’s answer is that private operators, not the U.S. government, will hold the wells, and that cash and kit on the ground will make reversal expensive.

What the Caracas signing adds is a public ledger of company names. Chevron and ENI are now on paper at Miraflores. GE Vernova is in the same room. NABEP is the local wrapper. The 65 billion barrel figure remains a political claim until production reports show those barrels leaving the Orinoco. The test this winter is whether output keeps rising after the cameras leave the palace.