The initial exports have rapidly drained the ventures’ oil inventories, which had built up for years. Chevron plans to continue pushing up heavy crude output mainly at oilfields in eastern and western Venezuela belonging to its Petropiar and Petroboscan projects, according to the sources.
In the second phase, Chevron plans to drive crude production to up to 160,000 bpd this year and about 200,000 bpd in 2024, one of the people said. To optimize exports, the oil major has proposed to help Venezuela prepare a study on dredging Lake Maracaibo’s navigation channel, which would let it load larger tankers, three of the people said. Chevron also has asked PDVSA to assign it dedicated storage tanks for its joint ventures to improve handling of imported diluents and crude from the Orinoco Belt, Venezuela’s largest producing region.
The license will keep renewing unless the U.S. decides to rescind it or changes its terms, sources in Washington, Houston and Caracas said.
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