Venezuela Opposition Calls for U.S. Oil License Withdrawal

The Venezuelan opposition coalition called this week on the U.S. federal government to withdraw oil operation licenses issued to American companies for projects in Venezuela as a means of turning up the heat on the Maduro government further.

“We want them canceled … this is a lifeline to the regime,” Rafael de la Cruz, adviser to Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, the candidate who ran against Maduro in the July elections, said, as quoted by the AP.

“We want all the oil companies to go to Venezuela. So, it’s not about the companies. It’s about the situation that is impoverishing the country so badly that practically the whole population wants this regime gone,” de la Cruz also said, speaking at an event organized by the Council of the Americas, a New York-based business entity, per the AP.

U.S. sanctions against Venezuela’s oil industry effectively ban American companies from operating there without a special exemption license. The biggest energy major to get such a license was Chevron, back in 2022 when anti-Russian sanctions threatened global oil supply.

Then, in October 2023, the U.S. introduced a temporary sanctions relief until April 2024 that allowed the production, lifting, sale, and exportation of oil or gas from Venezuela, and the provision of related goods and services, as well as payment of invoices for goods or services related to oil or gas sector operations in Venezuela. The period of the relief ended in mid-April and the sanctions snapped back in the absence of much progress in bilateral talks on fair elections.

According to de la Cruz, the participation of American companies in the development of Venezuelan crude oil reserves under the Maduro government legitimizes said government. Their presence in the country, he argued, helped “normalize … de facto dictatorship that he is trying to set up in Venezuela.”

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

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