Consensus in US Congress to Revamp Pressure on Venezuela

By Misión Verdad – Apr 2, 2024

Following the expiration of its term of six months, General License No. 44, issued by the United States government to the Venezuelan oil and gas industry on October 18, 2023, expires on April 18. The license was last applied within the framework of negotiations between the government of President Nicolás Maduro and the far-right Unitary Platform in Barbados.

The renewal of this license—which authorizes transactions with PDVSA for production, extraction, sale, and export, as well as new investments and delivery of oil to creditors—was called into question at the end of January when the Biden government revoked General License No. 43, granted to the Venezuelan state gold company, Minerven, as a sort of blackmail after Venezuela’s Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) confirmed the disqualification of María Corina Machado.

In this context, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the United States House of Representatives approved last week, with the votes of Republicans and Democrats, a bill to reimpose sanctions on Venezuela.

The HR6831 project was introduced in December 2023 by Republican María Elvira Salazar and seven other congresspersons from both parties with a view to reactivating and extending, until December 31, 2025, the Emergency Relief, Democracy Assistance, and Development Act for Venezuela (VERDAD). The proposal will now have to be voted on by the full House of Representatives for it to be approved.

#Venezuela: Attorney General Tarek William Saab condemned the request of US congressmen Marco Rubio and Maria Elvira Salazar to declare the criminal group known as the "Tren de Aragua” as a transnational criminal organization linked to the Venezuelan statehttps://t.co/H7MQEzadxg
— teleSUR English (@telesurenglish) March 20, 2024

Congressperson Salazar and Senator Marco Rubio, both Republicans and of Cuban origin, used the political situation in Venezuela as an argument, claiming that María Corina Machado and her team were being persecuted unfairly.

In total, 13 presidential candidates were registered for the upcoming July 28 presidential elections. However, they claim that President Maduro’s government has violated the commitments signed in the Barbados Agreement.

While US congresspersons promote the bill to reactivate sanctions, the oil company Chevron announced its plans to resume drilling in the Orinoco Oil Belt, a key field where heavy crude oil is extracted, as recently reported by Bloomberg.

Progress was being made in a gas extraction project involving PDVSA and the oil companies BP, Chevron, and Shell. The plan seeks to reactivate the so-called Deltana Platform, an offshore concession shared with Trinidad and Tobago where there are about eight trillion cubic feet of gas reserves. The project had been paralyzed for about 10 years due to a lack of clear rules for investment since it was shared by two countries.

It cannot be ignored that the lifting of sanctions is significant for the United States, especially in this election year and in the global energy context spurred by escalating regional conflicts in Europe and Asia.

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Venezuela has always been a reliable alternative supplier in times of instability in West Asia, and the ongoing war in Gaza opens the possibility of the conflict escalating to the entire region and involving other large producers. Added to this is the fact that recent production cuts by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) have contributed to the rise in crude oil prices.

As we have been warning, the renewal or not of the licenses for Venezuelan crude oil not only depends on the decision of some US congresspersons but also on other circumstances that influence the politics and society of the US, including the behavior of the global energy market.

(Misión Verdad)

Translation: Orinoco Tribune

OT/JRE/SL