Foreign Venezuela oil claims in doubt after US intervention

The future of billions of barrels of Venezuelan oil that foreign companies are entitled to under current agreements has been thrown into doubt, following

Washington’s capture of President Nicolas Maduro

over the weekend.

State-owned Chinese and Russian companies have some of the biggest claims on the Latin American nation’s oil, said Morgan Stanley analysts, including Mr Martijn Rats, in a note. Nevertheless, the significant assets are still far outweighed by the more than 200 billion barrels held by Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA).

“The crucial question is what will happen with Venezuela’s production from here. This remains hard to forecast,” the analysts said. “Over the medium term, however, risks to production are clearly to the upside, at least from a resource and technical perspective.”

China Petroleum & Chemical, known as Sinopec, has around 2.8 billion barrels of oil that it is entitled to in Venezuela, followed by Roszarubezhneft and China National Petroleum, Morgan Stanley said, citing data from consultant Wood Mackenzie. Roszarubezhneft bought Rosneft PJSC’s assets in the Latin American country in 2020.

Indian companies ONGC Videsh and Indian Oil have smaller entitlements to Venezuelan oil resources, according to information on their websites.

There have also been several small Chinese firms that entered production-sharing agreements with PDVSA, such as Anhui Guangda Mining Investment, Anhui Erhuan Petroleum Group and China Concord Resources, according to Dr Michal Meidan, head of China energy research at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.

It is likely that “the Chinese government and firms will wait and see how events unfold”, she said. “They may lose flows and assets in the short term, but they may well find their way back to Venezuela over time.” BLOOMBERG