The US company North American Blue Energy Partners (NABEP) will take over Venezuelan oilfields previously operated by Chinese and Russian firms, under the production agreement President Donald Trump announced with Caracas, officials told Reuters (Express Tribune; CNBC).
What changes hands
Five fields previously operated by Chinese companies and one by a Russian firm move to NABEP. The displaced operators include China Concord Resources — sanctioned in 2019 — along with Sinopec and China National Petroleum Corp. Two projects linked to associates of former president Nicolás Maduro also transfer.
NABEP will end up controlling 17 Venezuelan projects, 14 of them newly granted.
The terms
This is not a conventional commercial deal, and the structure is the story:
– the US Department of State holds rights to a 35% stake in NABEP – board veto power, and a requirement that the board be majority American – right of first refusal on 80% of production – preferential access to 20% of production at cost
Trump has said the arrangement secures US access to roughly 64 billion barrels of Venezuela’s proven reserves.
Who owns NABEP
The company was previously owned by the American oil businessman Harry Sargeant and is now controlled by the Venezuelan businessman Alejandro Betancourt, who said: “Venezuela is blessed with an abundance of natural resources, hardworking people and untapped potential.”
Why it matters beyond Venezuela
China and Russia have been the principal foreign operators in Venezuela’s oil sector for the better part of two decades, in large part because US sanctions kept American firms out. This reverses that in a single step, and does it by state action rather than commercial competition — a government department taking an equity stake, a veto and priority access to output.
For oil markets already pricing in a Hormuz disruption risk, a shift in who controls the largest proven reserves on earth is a second structural variable in the same week.
[Image: workers from Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA operate a pumpjack in Lake Maracaibo, January 2026. Reuters, via Express Tribune.]
[Image: Reuters via Express Tribune]
