The first shipment of Venezuelan oil from the agreement between the United States and the company North American Blue Energy Partners (Nabep) It arrived in Texas on Tuesday to be sold by the US government to refineries operated by Exxon Mobil and Citgo.
“This shipment marks the beginning of a broader agreement between the company and the United States Departments of State and War, which gives the US government the right to acquire 20% of NABEP’s production at cost price (without profit margin), in addition to a 35% equity stake in NABEP’s parent company,” the company said in a statement.
The pact, announced in August by the Donald Trump administration and the government of Venezuelan interim president Delcy Rodríguez, grants Nabep century-long rights to drill 17 oil fields holding approximately 65 billion barrels of crude oilequivalent to about a fifth of Venezuela’s reserves.
Trump and Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, visited the Texas town of Corpus Christi on Tuesday, where they held an election rally and saw one of the newly arrived tankers in the port.
“This shipment arrived in Texas in just over a week. Crude from the Middle East may take more than a month,” Alejandro Betancourt, executive director of Nabep, stated in the statement.
The company maintains operational control of the business and Aspires to exceed one million barrels per day of production in the short term.
“In the last two years, the company has increased its production from about 18,000 barrels per day to more than 200,000, thanks to its own investment of approximately 1,000 million dollars,” detailed the firm, which, as of October 19, reaches total production of 223,509 barrels per day.
This first shipment is part of an agreement that both the United States and Venezuela described as “historic” and that was announced almost eight months after the capture of Nicolás Maduro in Caracas, an episode that opened a new stage in relations between Washington and the Venezuelan interim administration.
