For years, doing oil deals in Venezuela meant pain. You worked under U.S. sanctions. You worked around a state firm that often couldn't pay. You weren't really allowed to sell the crude you helped pump. This week, that all shifted. Caracas put a draft contract on the table. Drillers wanted to read it before putting up a dollar.
Venezuela's oil ministry kicked off contract talks with foreign drillers on Friday. It's the first real paper since the January oil law reform. That reform gave PDVSA's partners the right to run fields and sell the oil they pump.
That last part is the big shift. Under the old rules, foreign partners had to hand their oil to PDVSA. PDVSA often could not pay them back. The new law lets firms trade the oil they make.
The ministry has also been writing new tax rules. Firms need both pieces - the deal and the tax bill - to run real numbers on a project.
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Chevron, Repsol, and Shell have all said they plan to grow in Venezuela. Each made that call after the political reset earlier this year. A handful of smaller drillers have joined in too. Some are already moving rigs without waiting for the final terms.
The U.S. is also moving pieces. The Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control has been quietly handing out licenses. Those let firms resume or grow work in Venezuela. The big plan, drafted by D.C., is a $100 billion push to rebuild the country's oil sector.
Venezuela holds the largest proven oil reserves on the planet. But under Maduro, output cratered to a fraction of where it sat in the early 2000s. The country once pumped more than 3.5 million barrels a day. By the end of Maduro's rule, PDVSA was running closer to 850,000.
Bringing those barrels back is one of the few short-term levers Washington has. That lever can push global crude supply up. That's been a bigger goal since the Strait of Hormuz shut down in February. Each barrel from Venezuela is one less barrel the world has to chase from elsewhere.
Most of Venezuela's crude is heavy. U.S. Gulf Coast plants are built to run it. So a lot of the new supply could flow straight to U.S. refiners.
The political backdrop is fresh. The U.S. captured former president Nicolas Maduro in January. It backed Delcy Rodriguez as interim leader. That shift opened the door for all this. The next test is whether Venezuela can put usable contract terms on the table on time. The first phase of reviews missed its March deadline.
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