Venezuela crude exports hit around 1.15 million barrels per day back in April, Wood Mackenzie revealed in a statement sent to Rigzone recently.
The statement noted that Washington’s August 28 announcement of a joint venture covering 65 billion barrels of proven Venezuelan reserves had “sharpened market focus on crude export flows that Wood Mackenzie’s voyage tracking has monitored since January”.
“The Washington deal has increased market focus on Venezuela’s crude export outlook, but the export infrastructure had already reached elevated throughput,” Ian Solis, Maritime Data Analyst at Wood Mackenzie, said in the statement.
“Our data shows flows consistently above 700,000 barrels per day since January, with exports peaking at approximately 1.15 million barrels per day in April,” he added.
“Week on week monitoring will now reveal how quickly regulatory approvals and infrastructure constraints align to support higher production,” he continued.
Wood Mackenzie’s statement outlined that April led all months, in terms of exports, through July 15. By grade, “Merey dominated, followed by Hamaca, Boscan, and other blends”, the company revealed, adding that Chevron “held its position as top charterer, with North America absorbing the largest share of outbound volumes”.
“These reference points establish the baseline against which any concession-driven ramp will register,” Wood Mackenzie pointed out in the statement.
The company noted that higher exports carry a refining dependency “that markets must track”. It added that Venezuelan heavy grades “need diluents to flow efficiently” and said Wood Mackenzie’s data “show fuel oil exports and naphtha imports moving in step with crude each month”.
“This pattern reflects the grade and sub-product requirements built into Venezuela’s export mix. Any sustained volume increase will therefore pull higher refined-product imports alongside it,” the company highlighted.
Solis went on to note in the statement that the key variable is the destination split.
“The share moving to global markets versus U.S. refineries, configured to process heavy sour barrels into products for re-export, will determine the deal’s actual market impact,” he said.
“The activation of these reserves points to crude flows remaining above 700,000 barrels per day and potentially approaching historic highs,” Solis added.
In an oil and gas report sent to Rigzone recently by the Macquarie team, Macquarie strategists, including Peter Taylor, Head of Commodity Strategy at Macquarie Group, noted that U.S. imports of Venezuelan crude “continue to rise”.
“Notably, we believe Venezuelan volumes can punch well above their weight in the Trump administration’s pursuit of energy independence or ‘dominance’ (in whatever form it may take),” they added.
In this report, the Macquarie strategists highlighted that U.S. President Donald Trump’s 65 billion barrel oil deal with Venezuela “garnered substantial attention” but revealed that they were casting their eyes to agreements also reached by Eni and Chevron.
In separate statements posted on their respective websites on September 2, Eni announced that it had signed a “strategic contract” in Venezuela and become operator of the “super giant” Junín-5 oil field, and Chevron announced agreements with Venezuela which it said “establish updated terms for its joint ventures, supporting future investment, project development, and production growth in the country”.
The Macquarie strategists noted in their report that, “while the disclosures are not entirely straightforward, reports would place the potential Venezuelan production growth from these agreements in the ballpark of 700,000 barrels per day over the next four to five years”.
“All told, we see these announcements as broadly consistent with our assessment of Venezuela’s upstream from earlier this year, wherein we saw upside to ~2 million barrels per day by 2030-2032 in a rough ‘best case’ scenario,” they added.
“To this end, a separate DOE [U.S. Department of Energy] fact sheet spoke to doubling Venezuela’s oil production ‘in less than five years’,” they continued.
A fact sheet posted on the DOE website On September 2 announced that U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright traveled to Venezuela to oversee the signing of “landmark” energy agreements with Chevron, Eni, and GE Vernova “that will expand oil production, unlock billions in private-sector investment, and modernize Venezuela’s electric grid”.
“These landmark agreements represent another major step in the Trump administration’s efforts to unlock Venezuela’s vast energy resources and rebuild critical energy infrastructure,” the fact sheet said.
“These historic investments will double Venezuela’s oil production in less than five years, bringing more abundant and affordable energy to the market and putting a downward pressure on global energy prices, creating greater peace, prosperity, and economic opportunity for the United States and Venezuela,” it added.
In a statement posted on his Truth Social page on August 28, U.S. President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. had “just entered into an Agreement with the Country of Venezuela on … THE BIGGEST OIL DEAL IN WORLD HISTORY!”.
In a statement posted on her X page on August 29, Delcy Rodriguez, Acting President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, announced a “historic agreement with the United States government”, which she said “will have a significant impact” on Venezuela’s “revival”.