CARACAS, Apr 25 (IPS) – Decreased to a marginal oil producer over the previous decade, Venezuela has suffered one other blow as United States president Donald Trump ordered punitive measures to blockade and additional prohibit the nation’s oil exports.
Venezuelan crude will doubtless navigate the fringes of worldwide oil commerce and finance, flowing towards Asian markets as the federal government seeks to keep away from monetary suffocation—presumably with out ruling out new negotiations with Washington.
“Venezuela has been very hostile to the US and the Freedoms which we espouse. Subsequently, any Nation that purchases Oil and/or Fuel from Venezuela will likely be pressured to pay a Tariff of 25% to the US on any Commerce they do with our Nation,” Trump wrote on his media platform Fact Social on March 24.
Concurrently, Trump revoked licenses permitting U.S. corporations Chevron and International Oil Terminals, Spain’s Repsol, France’s Maurel & Promenade, India’s Reliance, and Italy’s Eni to function in Venezuela.
The foreseeable final result “will likely be a drop in oil manufacturing—presumably over 100,000 barrels per day—with decrease revenues and difficulties in inserting crude on the black market,” Francisco Monaldi, a fellow at Rice College’s Baker Institute’s Middle for Vitality Research, informed IPS.
Venezuela, which as soon as produced three million barrels (159 liters every) per day within the early 2000’s, has seen a decline since 2013, falling under 400,000 barrels in 2020.
It is a stark distinction to its historical past because the world’s second-largest producer and prime exporter a century in the past, a co-founder of OPEC in 1960, and nonetheless residence to the most important crude reserves—over 300 billion barrels.
The collapse of the trade and state-owned PDVSA resulted from a mixture of dwindling investments, uncared for upkeep, erratic administration, and dangerous offers—all amid financial and social collapse and intense political strife.
Furthermore, corruption has reached such heights that a number of former Vitality Ministers and presidents of PDVSA have been imprisoned, whereas others are fugitives overseas. In keeping with the Venezuelan chapter of Transparency Worldwide, the quantities that “evaporated” with out ever reaching state coffers add as much as tens of billions of {dollars}.
Moreover, Washington imposed escalating sanctions on Venezuelan political and navy leaders, with extreme results on PDVSA’s provides and operations, the Central Financial institution, and different state entities.
GDP shrank to 1 / 4 of its early-2000s stage, hyperinflation reached six digits, income-based poverty hit 90%, and eight million Venezuelans—one in 4—left the nation.
Nonetheless, since 2022, Washington’s inexperienced mild for Chevron and different international corporations helped manufacturing recuperate to 760,000 barrels per day in 2023, 857,000 in 2024, and 913,000 in March 2025, based on OPEC’s secondary sources.
Chevron accounted for 25% of this output, with PDVSA dealing with the remaining. The U.S. agency additionally facilitated the import of fifty,000 barrels of diluent each day to mix with Venezuela’s heavy crude, With a view to enhance and facilitate refining.
“It’s assumed PDVSA will take over Chevron’s fields, however a drop is inevitable,” Andrés Rojas, editor of Venezuelan oil journal Petroguía, informed IPS.
The affect
Monaldi explains that of Venezuela’s 700,000 each day exportable barrels, half went to “licensed locations” (primarily the US, Europe, and India), whereas the remaining went to China (as debt compensation) and Cuba.
Economist Asdrúbal Oliveros, head of Ecoanalítica, consulting agency, estimates Venezuela will lose over US$3 billion this yr from Chevron’s withdrawal, leaving exterior revenues at not more than US$13 billion for its 29 million individuals.
Authorities “revenues will plummet as a result of PDVSA will wrestle to supply (as a consequence of shortages of supplies and spare elements), safe diluents, and put money into initiatives,” Monaldi mentioned.
The skilled explains that PDVSA should return to the black market, utilizing practices akin to transferring crude oil at sea or within the Strait of Malacca in Southeast Asia to vessels totally different from these initially dispatched.
This fashion, the oil reaches its vacation spot, normally China, labeled as being produced in Malaysia or one other a part of the world.
Nonetheless, these distant and complex routes have the twin impact of accelerating prices—together with freight and insurance coverage—and decreasing income, because the oil should be bought at reductions of 30% or extra in comparison with costs on the common market.
In the meantime, the commerce, financial, and monetary shock triggered by Trump’s tariff storm this month is driving oil costs down, with present benchmarks like West Texas Intermediate (WTI) at US$63 and North Sea Brent at US$67 per barrel.
Black market challenges
In April of this yr, two oil tankers—the Bahamian-flagged Carina Voyager and the Marshall Islands-registered Dubai Attraction—loaded 500,000 and 350,000 barrels of crude, respectively, at Venezuelan terminals. The oil was initially meant to be transported by Chevron to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast.
Nonetheless, the vessels needed to flip round and return to Venezuelan ports after state-run PDVSA realized it might not have the ability to gather fee for the shipments as a consequence of Washington’s sanctions. The cargoes will now be diverted to Venezuela’s prime Asian consumer: China.
“PDVSA has executed this since 2019 with Russian and Iranian assist, utilizing two or three intermediaries to ship the masses,” Rojas famous.
Along with the upper prices stemming from intermediaries, longer distances, and elevated dangers, Rojas factors out that Venezuelan crude is heavier than benchmark Brent and WTI oils, that means its worth per barrel is roughly US$10 decrease.
Monaldi notes that even when China disregards Washington’s menace to hike tariffs on Venezuelan oil imports—or Malaysia, the place a lot of this black-market commerce flows—danger premiums will rise, and Venezuela will bear the brunt by receiving inadequate diluents for its heavy crudes.
“The state of affairs is extraordinarily difficult, and it will doubtless push the Venezuelan economic system—which had been experiencing modest progress in recent times (2.6% in 2023 and 5.0% in 2024, based on the Venezuelan Finance Observatory)—again into recession, presumably as early as 2025,” the skilled warns.
Monaldi provides that the recession will come alongside a pointy depreciation of the bolívar in opposition to the greenback (already over 50% since January) and, consequently, increased inflation, which Ecoanalítica estimates may attain 189% this yr.
On this new sport, even American oil importers lose out—they’d benefited from cheaper Venezuelan crude, which allowed them to unencumber United States oil volumes for higher-priced exports to 3rd nations, Rojas famous.
He additionally factors out that Chevron’s withdrawal “hurts communities like Soledad” (a city of 35,000 in southeastern Venezuela), the place a well being middle relied on assist from the company as a part of its social duty program.
And, as a closing blow to Venezuela’s setbacks, two South American neighbors—as soon as internet importers of its oil—have now joined the thriving membership of exporters welcomed by Washington: Brazil, which produces 3.4 million barrels per day, and Guyana, now pumping 650,000 barrels each day.
© Inter Press Service (2025) — All Rights Reserved. Unique supply: Inter Press Service
