In January of 2019, massive mobilizations were unleashed again against the already consolidated Maduro's dictatorship. These protests were used by Juan Guaidó to proclaim himself president of the country, while Washington recognized him as interim president. In response, the Trump administration announced sanctions against PDVSA, so any purchase of Venezuelan oil by U.S. entities would have all money deposited into U.S. accounts Blocked. For the first time, the oil exchange between Venezuela and the U.S., a traditional client and payer of the oil company South American that then shipped about 500,000 barrels a day.
To these Sanctions known as "primary" were added to the so-called "sanctions secondary institutions" that vetoed citizens and foreign entities that "materially assist, sponsor or provide financial, material or technological support, or goods or services to the sanctioned person Government of Venezuela" (*). This sanction further complicated PDVSA and led to the country to resort to the black market for oil, trading crude oil with large discounts and tricks such as the use of ghost ships to ensure the sale or barter for goods or hydrocarbon derivatives. It is in this period that the Chinese capitalist dictatorship became the main partner allowing the regime to survive. By 2023, China represented 68% of exports and the United States 23%.
All the Guaidó's policy and the bourgeois opposition failed, just as it fails in at this moment the politics of María Corina Machado. This is due to the fear that these bourgeois sectors have in developing a forceful mobilization against dictatorship, for fear that it will end up exceeding the limits of capitalism and lead to a workers' and people's revolution, which they cannot stop and wear them too. The "pacifist" and "demobilizing" policy of Guaidó helped the dictatorship to overcome the mobilizations, with which the imperialism had to negotiate with the regime.
Thus, on 17 October 2023, at a meeting in Bridgetown, Barbados, the Agreement was signed on the promotion of political rights and electoral guarantees for all Venezuelans, known as the Barbados Agreement, between the government and the opposition of the Unitary Platform of Venezuela. This It had two fundamental points:
1.- The Promotion of political rights and electoral guarantees for the next 2024 presidential election process.
2.- The protection of the vital interests of the nation in relation to the assets of the republic abroad (Citgo's assets) and the defense of integrity Venezuelan territorial and national sovereignty (Essequibo dispute).
In response to this multilateral commitment, to make progress in the "restoration of The U.S. Department of the Treasury announced the suspension of some sanctions, including oil sanctions. This became known as the license 44 that allowed most U.S. oil companies doing business in Venezuela, as well as authorizing PDVSA to sell its oil in the United States and use its financial system to pay and collect debts. A few days after the agreement, the government of Venezuela granted 30-year licenses to Shell and NGC to produce gas off the Venezuelan coast.
But the reality is that it was a maneuver to deepen the business of the Yankee and European oil companies in Venezuela, because the (Biden) government of The United States knew perfectly well that it was impossible for the United States to corroded and discredited dictatorship of Maduro, granted clean elections or a democratic opening.
It is a Starting from the Barbados Agreement that the "oligarchy" re-entered with force Texas oil company," to recover lost ground and save the Biden administration. This was confirmed by the president of the Association Latin American Association of Oil Entrepreneurs of Texas (ALEP), Alejandro Terán, declaring to a news agency that "The coming winter of 2024 may therefore become the winter of 1971, when the Americans really had a very cold Christmas. The increase in consumption of Texas and the state apparatus with a view to elections at the end of the year. This year, puts the U.S. in an economic boom and needs to cover its quota oil company." And in that sense "we are going to make an investment in more than 16,000 oil wells so that in the next three years Venezuela reaches production of 3,250,000 bpd, thus recovering 80% of its capacity" (**).
(*) https://ve.usembassy.gov/es/orden-ejecutiva-bloqueo-de-bienes-del-gobierno-de-venezuela/
(**) https://www.eluniversal.com/economia/184055/empresarios-petroleros-de-texas-firmaron-acuerdo-con-pdvsa-para-incrementar-produccion
The lucrative benefits of the License 41
On 18 December April 2024 license 44 expires and the Biden administration does not allow its renewal, because there was no progress in the "democratic restoration" agreed in Barbados. In this way, it reinstated sanctions on oil and gas (suspended for six months). Despite the expiration of License 44, the Chevron, the main oil company operating in the country, can continue to working for a while longer, as it does so under another authorization, the License 41 (granted in November 2022 and renewed every 6 months), of the that the Treasury Department did not provide specific statements about its future.
The License 41 states that Chevron is prohibited from paying royalties and taxes to the government of Venezuela, however the Maduro government receives benefits Millionaires. The reason this happens is because tax payments and royalties are not made by Chevron but by the joint ventures in which it is associated with PDVSA. Joint venture moves operation to Chevron, Chevron exports oil to obtain an oil income that is then transferred to the company and this is the one that pays the royalties and extraction taxes.
These operations are under the protection of the Anti-Blockade Law approved in 2020 by the Constituent Assembly. Let us clarify that this body is a "parallel parliament" that responds completely to Chavismo and that was created in 2017 to replace the National Assembly, at which time it was he implants the dictatorship. The Anti-Blockade Law concentrates powers in the presidency and has as fundamental aspects the possibility of disapplying other laws and conduct transactions confidentially. In this way, the Chevron's contracts are entered into under this confidentiality and by therefore, all files are confidential and there is no transparency in the operations.
All of this under the complicity of the U.S. government, since from the beginning, the Joe Biden's administration, considered the Constituent Assembly, which approved the Anti-Blockade Law, as "the illegitimate product of an irregular process, which was conceived by Maduro's dictatorship to advance with its subjugation of democracy" (*).
The License 41 is not a minor permit. By August 2024, exports of oil prices reached their highest level in more than 4 years. PDVSA and joint ventures with Chevron and Spain's Repsol, exported an average of almost 885,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil and fuel, up 50% from the month and 62% above the same month in 2023, according to data based on the tanker movements (**).
The Chevron's crude oil exports to its own U.S. refineries, and Other customers reached 227,000 bpd, the second-highest monthly average of 2024. Repsol, for its part, sent about 86,000 bpd to the United States and Europe, down from 102,000 bpd in July, the data showed. But in August of 2024, Spanish imports of Venezuelan oil had already exceeded the total for 2023, according to data published by the Ministry of Energy and Environment Spanish atmosphere All this thanks to the blessed License 41!
(*) https://cl.usembassy.gov/es/asamblea-nacional-constituyente-ilegitima-de-venezuela/
(**) https://www.lanacion.com.ar/agencias/exportaciones-petroleras-de-venezuela-suben-en-agosto-a-maximo-de-cuatro-anos-nid05092024/
Chevron: fuel for the dictatorship
In the recent history of the United States the governments of Democrats are exchanged and Republicans. The former with a "progressive" discourse and the seconds with a "reactionary" speech, seeming, from the words, to have opposing interests. But speeches are one thing and another thing It is objective reality: that which is observed in this complex network of economic and trade agreements, mainly around the activity oil company that constitutes more than 90% of Venezuela's revenues. In this In reality, both sectors support the continuous looting of the Venezuelan country and both they are just as benevolent with Maduro's dictatorship. The case of Chevron is the ABC of this action.
During the government of Hugo Chávez, oil companies were forced to migrate to a system of joint ventures, in which they could continue to operate in the country but protected by a majority shareholding of PDVSA. Chevron, British Petroleum, Statoil and Total agreed to the terms while that Conoco and Exxon Movil did not do so and as a result of this they were expropriated and withdrew from Venezuela.
In that At that time, PDVSA became the largest shareholder, with 60 percent, of the largest shareholder. all the projects of Chevron, a company that has been operating in Venezuela for 101 years (since 1923). They also demanded that they finance the state part of the PDVSA. But as international prices were still very high, Chevron agreed and continued in Venezuela.
In 2017 the Trump government sanctions mentioned above have begun previously and the company entered a period of stagnation in which it reduced drastically his operations, and devoted himself to the maintenance of the fields oil tankers and their own machinery.