Chevron CEO says there have been no talks with Trump on Venezuela

Chevron CVX.N, the only U.S. oil producer currently working in Venezuela’s oil fields, has not had any discussions with President-elect Donald Trump’s team about the company’s operations in the country, the chief executive said on Friday. Michael Wirth.

Since 2019, Venezuela’s oil industry has been under US sanctions designed to curb its oil revenues and force the ouster of President Nicolás Maduro in response to electoral fraud following his re-election in 2018 and a disputed election in 2024.

Chevron has been allowed since 2022 to export oil to recover unpaid dividends from joint venture partners.

Its goal is to support U.S. policy on Venezuela while providing a better future for Venezuelans, Wirth said in comments to the Atlantic Council think tank.

“We’re trying to hang in there, work with our government,” Wirth said.

“As other companies left Venezuela, they were replaced, generally, by companies from two countries, Russia and China, and if we left, without a doubt, that is where the operations that we are involved in would probably end as well,” he added.

The easing of restrictions on Chevron and other oil companies occurred under the administration of US President Joe Biden and it is unclear what the policy of the incoming Trump administration will be.

Oil shipments last month to the United States from Venezuela by Chevron under a 2022 authorization from the Biden administration were 238,000 barrels per day.

Wirth also spoke about the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which the government is working to replenish after its biggest sale in 2022 left levels at their lowest in 40 years.

“If (SPR) is no longer necessary, we should come to that conclusion. If it is necessary, I think there should be some guardrails around its use that are a little stronger than what exists today,” Wirth said.

And on Iran, Wirth noted that current US sanctions have not really kept Iranian barrels off the market, but rather redirected them.

“And that’s true for many of the sanctions that are in place right now. They haven’t actually restricted the supply, they’ve just redirected it,” Wirth said.

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