{"id":288516,"date":"2026-02-13T01:42:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T01:42:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/288516\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T01:42:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T01:42:14","slug":"us-energy-secretary-and-venezuelas-acting-president-tour-oil-facility-in-warming-ties-just-weeks-after-maduro-ouster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/288516\/","title":{"rendered":"US energy secretary and Venezuela\u2019s acting president tour oil facility in warming ties just weeks after Maduro ouster"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anzo\u00e1tegui State, Venezuela
\n \u00a0\u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n It\u2019s a scenario that seemed impossible just 40 days ago: A high-ranking US official walking side by side with Venezuela\u2019s leader to discuss investments in the country.\n <\/p>\n

\n Yet that was the scene Thursday when US Energy Secretary Chris Wright toured oil producing facilities in the South American nation with its acting president Delcy Rodr\u00edguez.\n <\/p>\n

\n As they walked through the sprawling tank farm of compressors, valves and hissing pipes, Wright was shown a small fraction of the enormous energy potential trapped under Venezuela\u2019s soil, as the US moves to control sales of the country\u2019s oil.\n <\/p>\n

\n During the tour, US and Venezuelan flags stood side by side at the facility the group visited, and Rodr\u00edguez held several conversations in English, a language she perfectly mastered after studying in the UK but that she declined to speak in public for years for political reasons.\n <\/p>\n

\n Thursday\u2019s visit was full of smiles, laughs and handshakes \u2013 a stunning reversal in international affairs less than two months after a US Delta Force operation captured Rodr\u00edguez\u2019s predecessor, Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, before detaining him in the US on drug-related charges.\n <\/p>\n

\n Wright\u2019s visit is part of a two-day trip to Venezuela that also included a formal reception at the Presidential Palace in Caracas on Wednesday. Maduro\u2019s name was only mentioned once on the first day, Wright told CNN, because the trip was to discuss business, not politics.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cNorth of $100 million will be invested to upgrade and increase the throughput capacity of this facility,\u201d Wright said live on CNN from Petropiar, an oil processing plant operated in a joint venture between US energy giant Chevron and the Venezuelan public oil company PDVSA.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThey\u2019re on target to double production in that particular field in the next 12 to 18 months and probably quintuple it over the next five years,\u201d Wright added.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThis is the way forward. This is the path of cooperation, and it is the agenda for a long-term productive partnership,\u201d Rodr\u00edguez told CNN.\n <\/p>\n

\"Venezuela's<\/p>\n

\n Until very recently, Rodr\u00edguez used to have a markedly different tone for the US administration, saying on January 26 that Venezuela would not accept mandates or orders coming down from Washington.\n <\/p>\n

\n On Thursday, Wright was quick to point to the consequences Venezuela would face if the newly found cooperation was reverted: \u201cThe leverage we have is we control the flow of the dominant industry of Venezuela. We control the flow of funds from oil. (Rodr\u00edguez) wants to work with us.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n The group was joined by the new US Charg\u00e9 d\u2019Affaires to Venezuela Laura Dogu, who has moved to Caracas less than two weeks ago and is now working to build up on the relation.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe are working a fast-paced agenda to strengthen our bilateral cooperation,\u201d Rodr\u00edguez told CNN, \u201cChevron has been here for a hundred years, and they are doing fantastic work,\u201d she said.\n <\/p>\n

\n Over the last 20 years, successive Venezuelan governments under Maduro and his predecessor Hugo Chavez almost brough the oil industry to a standstill by threatening foreign companies with expropriations.\n <\/p>\n

\n Conoco Philips CEO Ryan Lance recently suggested the new government should pay back millions of dollars in unpaid debt if it was serious about a new business relation.\n <\/p>\n

\n Venezuela has operated a series of U-turns since Maduro\u2019s ousting: As Wright and Rodr\u00edguez were visiting oil facilities, the National Assembly advanced plans to grant an amnesty to thousands of political prisoners after years of violent political confrontation.\n <\/p>\n

\n Last month, a reform to the hydrocarbon law to favor foreign investments in the sector was passed in a matter of days.\n <\/p>\n

\n Thursday\u2019s visit was the first time in eight years US media were allowed to visit the oil field, Chevron told CNN, a symptom of how acrimonious the relationship with Washington came to be. The two countries broke diplomatic ties in 2019 after the US threw its support behind the Venezuelan opposition, challenging Maduro\u2019s rule after a contested election.\n <\/p>\n

\"Infrastructure<\/p>\n

A lot remains to be done<\/p>\n

\n The task to bring the South American nation back into the number of free and democratic nation following Maduro\u2019s removal remains enormous.\n <\/p>\n

\n Under Maduro, the country regularly ranked among the lowest in the world for its democracy and rule of law, and over seven million Venezuelans fled the country to flee the humanitarian and political crisis of recent years, according to the US.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe are five weeks into the transition process; a lot remains to be done,\u201d Wright told CNN Wednesday.\n <\/p>\n

\n US President Donald Trump on Thursday hailed relations between both nations as \u201cextraordinary,\u201d saying, \u201cWe are dealing very well with President Delcy Rodr\u00edguez, and her Representatives.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Asked whether Trump would visit Venezuela before his term ends, Wright said he didn\u2019t know but \u201cwouldn\u2019t rule it out.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n The US does not recognize the legitimacy of Rodr\u00edguez\u2019s government, Wright said, and students were marching in Caracas on Thursday morning asking for new elections.\n <\/p>\n

\n Asked about Rodr\u00edguez\u2019s future and her repeated insistence that Maduro remains Venezuela\u2019s legitimate president, Wright said the US is not \u201cgoing to tell Delcy what her future role is. You know, that\u2019s ultimately going to be up to the Venezuelan people.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Wright defended the United States\u2019 increasing investments in Venezuela\u2019s oil industry despite the county\u2019s unclear roadmap toward democracy. He told CNN the US could not have waited until elections were held in Venezuela before starting to invest, insisting that the best way to improve conditions for ordinary Venezuelans is to allow oil income to flow back in after years of underinvestment and US sanctions.\n <\/p>\n

\n A Venezuelan oil worker at one of the facilities gleamingly told CNN she hoped former colleagues who fled the country in recent years would be able to return, before rapidly asking not to use her name for fear of political persecution if she was found to speak with the press.\n <\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

\n And yet, the feeling of a new beginning was palpable on Thursday. Standing in front of an inspection table during a photo-op, Wright picked up a glass flask filled with the thick, low-quality but incredibly abundant Venezuelan crude.\n <\/p>\n

\n Inspecting it briefly, he nodded a smile at the cameras and kissed the glass.\n <\/p>\n

\n Everyone cheered.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anzo\u00e1tegui State, Venezuela \u00a0\u2014\u00a0 It\u2019s a scenario that seemed impossible just 40 days ago: A high-ranking US official…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288517,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[114,184,85,46],"class_list":["post-288516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288516\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}