LNG Energy Group, a Canadian-based company owned by billionaire Texas businessman Rodney Lewis, has signed a deal with Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA to rehabilitate five onshore oil fields, according to the Associated Press. mediated. report Wednesday.
The deal was announced days after US President Joe Biden took office. returned Oil and gas sanctions against the socialist Maduro regime. LNG is Website It said the deal was brokered on April 17, the day before a six-month sanctions relief package expired.
Biden temporarily lifted the sanctions, originally imposed in 2019 under former President Donald Trump’s administration, in October 2023 as payback to the Maduro regime, but said this was a “free and fair” presidential inauguration. In a now-failed attempt to tempt socialists to allow the 2024 elections.
The Associated Press reported that as part of the deal, PDVSA signed an LNG contract to take over production and development of two oil fields in eastern Venezuela that currently produce about 3,000 barrels of oil per day. However, LNG’s website says the contract covers “five onshore oil fields.”
LNG said the contract with PDVSA was concluded within the terms of the sanctions relief package and stressed that it “intends to operate in full compliance with the applicable sanctions regime.”
The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) license On April 17, it gave companies a 45-day deadline to curtail PDVSA-related operations or operations unless they have a specific license from the U.S. Treasury Department. granted The company will partner with California-based Chevron in November 2022, allowing Chevron to restart oil production in Venezuela and sell Venezuelan oil in the U.S. market.
The logo of Chevron Global Technology Services, Inc. can be seen behind the socialist Venezuelan dictator. Nicolas Maduro November 29, 2022, at the administrative office in Caracas. (YURI CORTEZ/AFP via Getty Images)
The 45-day period is scheduled to end on May 31, 2024, but OFAC informed The ability of individuals or businesses to apply for an authorized license. Approval licenses are evaluated on a “case-by-case” basis. The AP said the loophole “could attract investment to the country with the world’s largest oil reserves as concerns about energy supplies grow following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”
“This will be a test of whether U.S. sanctions will be approved,” Francisco Monaldi, an expert on Latin American energy policy at Rice University’s Baker Institute, told The Associated Press.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken was a senior official in the Biden administration. Facilitate The prospect of forcing socialist dictator Nicolas Maduro to allow a “free and fair” presidential election in Venezuela. Maduro has been in power for the past six years, ever since he held highly fraudulent elections in May 2018 in which only handpicked rivals were allowed to compete with him.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (Eugene Hoshiko – Pool/Getty Images)
Biden lifted oil and gas sanctions that were reinstated in October at the end of a series of negotiations between Maduro’s government and opposition representatives in Barbados. The agreement signed there binds Maduro’s government to a series of vague promises that call for “free and fair” elections in 2024. profit And while it has established new business ventures with other countries thanks to Biden’s sanctions relief package, it hasn’t kept its promises and “replaced” the now-defunct election deal with a bespoke deal that requires a veneer. election July 28th.
President Maduro will generally ban leading opposition candidate Maria Colina Machado from running for public office and will not allow her to participate in fake election ballots. Since then, the socialist-led opposition has abandoned Machado despite her overwhelming popularity. rally We’re talking about Edmundo González Urrutia, a little-known 74-year-old former ambassador and the only opposition candidate allowed to register. Mr. González Urrutia originally registered his candidacy as “.placeholder” under the Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) card.
opposition leader Maria Corina Machado protests against the “new constitutional coup” in Caracas, Venezuela, on October 13, 2016. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
At the time of writing, González Urrutia is scheduled to face rivals and collaborators from Maduro and a small number of government-approved “opposition parties” in July’s sham elections.
Venezuelan presidential candidate Edmundo González Urrutia Posing for a photo during an interview with AFP news agency in Caracas on April 24, 2024 (Ronald Pena/AFP via Getty Images)
Christian K. Caruso is a Venezuelan writer who chronicles life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
