Chevron has signed a major new agreement to expand oil production in Venezuela, potentially marking one of the most important foreign investments in the country’s petroleum industry in decades. Announced September 2, 2026, the agreement calls for Chevron and its Venezuelan joint ventures to invest more than $7 billion over five years, while more than doubling their Venezuelan oil production to approximately 600,000 barrels per day.

According to Chevron, Venezuela has provided improved fiscal, commercial, and legal terms for its existing ventures and granted additional acreage in the enormous Orinoco Oil Belt. Petroindependencia, in which Chevron holds a 49 percent interest, will receive rights to develop the Carabobo-1 and Carabobo-2-South-A areas.

The deal is significant because it signals a shift in attitude by one of the world’s biggest oil companies towards Venezuela. Last year the major oil companies told President Trump Venezuela’s oil resources could not be developed for profit because of the poor condition of the country’s infrastructure and rampant government corruption. The deal could provide Chevron with a major new source of revenue, but it also puts the company at risk for any security threats or political upheavals in Venezuela.

Chevron’s involvement in Venezuela stretches back more than a century. The company began exploration there in 1923 and discovered the important Boscan field in 1946. Unlike ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips, which withdrew after President Hugo Chávez nationalized petroleum assets in 2007, Chevron maintained a presence through partnerships with Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, PDVSA. Today its principal ventures include Petroboscán, Petropiar, and Petroindependencia, producing primarily the heavy and extra-heavy crude for which Venezuela is famous.

Chevron has not placed a total dollar value on all of the oil that could ultimately be produced, so the clearest financial figure is the planned $7-billion-plus investment. But production does offer a sense of scale. Chevron currently produces roughly 280,000 barrels per day in Venezuela and expects output to reach about 600,000 barrels daily within five years.

That would make Chevron responsible for a substantial share of Venezuelan production, which currently stands at approximately 1.25 million barrels per day. Venezuela once produced around 3 million barrels daily before years of underinvestment, mismanagement, and sanctions devastated the industry.

The agreement may prove equally important from a political standpoint. Chevron CEO Mike Wirth traveled to Caracas for the signing alongside U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Venezuelan interim President Delcy Rodríguez. Rodríguez said the two governments are discussing further removal of U.S. sanctions.

Chevron’s expansion could provide Venezuela with capital, technology and export revenues while giving the United States greater access to the world’s largest proven petroleum reserves. If cooperation continues, oil could once again become an economic bridge between Washington and Caracas. But the relationship remains vulnerable to political instability, disputes over Venezuela’s government and concerns about the security of foreign investments.

Chevron’s $7 billion commitment is both an enormous commercial wager and an important test of whether decades of hostility between the United States and Venezuela can give way to a more pragmatic relationship built around energy and economic cooperation.