Chevron has been able to triple its crude production in Venezuela to 150,000 b/d since the US authorized limited sanctions relief roughly a year ago, chief executive Mike Wirth said today.
The 2022 sanctions relief allowed Chevron to "participate more fully" in Venezuela through basic engineering and maintenance on joint venture assets that previously produced just 50,000 b/d, Wirth said today at an event held by the think tank the Council on Foreign Relations.
President Joe Biden's administration in October issued a broader waiver from Venezuela sanction, valid through April. But the company would need further certainty on its operations in Venezuela — which has recently threatened to seize Guyana's oil-rich Essequibo province — before it could commit new long-term capital in the country, he said.
"We haven't put much new capital into Venezuela yet," Wirth said "To allocate long-term capital to anything that would grow would require much more certainty, stability and a clear line of sight on a long-term future in Venezuela than anything that we see at the present."
Chevron was authorized to resume limited oil production at its operations in Venezuela under a license the Biden administration issued in November 2022. During an earnings call on 27 October, Wirth said production in the country had reached "around 130,000 b/d" but the company was targeting "150,000 b/d or so" by year-end.
The US has called for a peaceful resolution of the dispute between Venezuela and Guyana through the International Court of Justice, which has called on Caracas to refrain from using force. Venezuelan president Nicholas Maduro's government last week gave ExxonMobil and other offshore producers a 90-day deadline to stop operations in disputed waters off the coast of Guyana.
Chevron's pending $53bn deal to buy US independent producer Hess is in large part focused on acquiring Hess' stake in offshore assets in Guyana. Wirth said it was his "hope" that the dispute in Guyana would be resolved peacefully through discussions and compromise.
"We're not a political actor, so we don't come down on one side or another on these kinds of things," Wirth said. "We're a business player in these economies, and so we always encourage discussion, negotiation and efforts to peacefully resolve, so I really can't say anything more."
Chevron's proposed merger with Hess has separately triggered a review by the US Federal Trade Commission, which recently asked the parties for more information about the deal. Wirth said he thinks the review will delay closure of the merger from the first quarter of 2024 until "further out in the year, but should not be an impediment to the deal.
"There's really very little overlap between Chevron and Hess in the US," Wirth said, "and so we don't see any substantive problems with the transaction."
