The Spanish oil company Repsol has resumed oil exports from Venezuela, as confirmed by Reuters. This operation is being carried out with special permission from the United States, which is not a full license but rather a mechanism allowing the oil company to settle debts owed by the state-owned PDVSA with in-kind oil shipments. The company informed LPO that while this is progress, all new business ventures in the Caribbean nation are being analyzed with extreme caution, particularly at the request of BlackRock, one of Repsol's main institutional shareholders. Although the company acknowledges that the US control over Venezuelan oil is total, numerous doubts remain that are not fully cleared up by the country's current favorable financial situation: the price of Venezuelan bonds has surged in recent weeks to levels not seen since Chavismo stopped paying its sovereign debt in 2017. Since the capture of Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela has stabilized its production at around one million barrels per day, up from a low of 500,000 barrels recorded when US sanctions came into effect in 2020, but still far below the 3 million barrels the country was extracting two decades ago. Repsol indicates that the main inconvenience continues to be the lack of legal certainty. The recently approved reform to the hydrocarbons law marks the most radical transformation of the country's oil framework since the nationalization of the industry in 1976, dismantling key pillars of the socialist model and replacing them with a hybrid system that, among other things, now allows private companies to export oil, not just PDVSA. However, the presence of key Chavismo figures in government positions in Caracas, the need for Washington's tutelage, and the absolute centrality of PDVSA as a mandatory partner, which holds a monopoly on contracts with private companies, complicate new business. This Thursday, the Spanish oil company Repsol sent Venezuelan crude shipments to its refineries again. In fact, Repsol believes that if it invests in Venezuela, it will be with resources allocated to other geographies and that profits will not be used to please the White House. Furthermore, BlackRock has reportedly expressed concern about the opacity of contracts with PDVSA, a secrecy that persists despite the reform promoted by the Rodríguez government. Given this landscape, the initial enthusiasm shown by the company's CEO, Josu Jon Imaz, in Washington last month may remain just a gesture of goodwill towards Trump.
