The US government has given Chevron and four oil service providers permission to keep working in Venezuela for another three months, extending their exemption from oil sanctions that have hit the rest of the industry in the South American country to a full year. The Treasury said on Monday that Chevron – along with Halliburton, Schlumberger, Baker Hughes and Weatherford International – could continue to work in Venezuela until January 22, although they are banned from exporting diluents to Venezuela that the country needs to process its heavy crude.
Washington has effectively imposed an oil embargo on Venezuela this year in a bid to weaken President Nicolas Maduro’s grip on power. It has barred state oil company PDVSA from exporting oil t< the US, stopped the import to Venezuela of diluents and urged oil companies elsewhere in the world to cut business with the government in Caracas. When it imposed the embargo in January, it gave US companies operating there a six-month exemption. It extended that waiver for three months in July and has now done the same again.
Chevron has four joint ventures with PDVSA in Venezuela, which between them produce about 200,000 barrels of crude per day (b/d) – more than a quarter of the country’s entire oil output. The company has worked in Venezuela for almost a century. It is the la major US oil company operating in Venezuela. Rivals Exxon and ConocoPhillips pulled out a decade ago in the face of an expropriation drive by then-president Hugo Chavez.