In a glittering ballroom at central London’s Langham hotel, around two hundred energy industry figures gathered Thursday evening to discuss what would have been unthinkable just months ago: pouring money into Venezuelan oil. Greig Gilbert, chief executive of investment firm Apertura Energy, made the case plainly to the crowd. He told them there is a window opening right now and they cannot afford to miss it. His company has already overhauled its strategy and rebranded itself specifically to pursue big-ticket investments in Venezuela’s crumbling oil sector, betting that the political shift following the January removal of then-President Nicolás Maduro has created conditions ripe for foreign capital to flow back into a country whose massive reserves were long controlled exclusively by the state.
The enthusiasm stems partly from real policy changes on the ground. Under acting President Delcy Rodríguez, who served as Maduro’s vice president, reforms have scrapped a longstanding requirement that state oil firm PDVSA hold a majority stake in joint ventures. Claire Jungman, director of maritime risk and intelligence at energy data firm Vortexa, explained that private companies can now operate fields directly, retain larger stakes, and keep more of their profits. Washington has also unwound some sanctions since January to make it easier for American companies to sell and export Venezuelan crude. The results have been striking, with Venezuela exporting twenty-eight million barrels last month alone, up nearly sixty-nine percent from the same period a year earlier. More than half those barrels are now bound for United States refineries equipped to handle Venezuela’s heavy crude, a dramatic shift from just months ago when nearly three-quarters of exports went to China.
But the path forward is littered with hazards that even the most bullish investors acknowledge. Years of punishing sanctions and economic collapse have hollowed out what was once a thriving industry, leaving infrastructure in desperate disrepair after years of neglect. Homayoun Falakshahi, head of crude oil analysis at Kpler, estimated that new projects will not bear fruit for another five years and will require somewhere between fifty billion and one hundred billion dollars of investment over the next decade. ExxonMobil chief executive Darren Woods was blunter still, declaring the country uninvestable during a White House meeting of oil executives back in January. That skepticism carries weight given that ExxonMobil was among several foreign firms expelled from Venezuela in 2007 when the government seized its assets, a memory that lingers across boardrooms worldwide.
Political instability remains perhaps the most unpredictable variable. While Rodríguez may be welcoming foreign firms today, oil companies invest on timelines spanning decades, and any future change in leadership could reverse course overnight. President Donald Trump has painted a simple picture for energy companies since Maduro’s ouster, telling them to go in, spend big, and fix things. Yet his own administration said it has already collected more than thirteen billion dollars from selling Venezuelan oil held in custodial accounts, prompting Democrats in Congress to demand greater transparency about where that money is going. For now though, investors like Gilbert are choosing optimism over caution, treating the London gathering as merely an appetizer ahead of October’s much larger Venezuela Energy Week conference planned for Caracas. Whether that bet pays off or becomes another costly misadventure in one of the world’s most volatile markets remains very much an open question.
