Why US big Chevron, not China, could save oil-rich Venezuela – DW – 12/12/2025 | EUROtoday

Speculation over President Maduro’s political future has intensified after US forces seized a Venezuelan oil tanker off the nation’s coast. The incident underscored Washington’s longstanding curiosity in a nation that holds the world’s largest confirmed oil reserves — an curiosity shared, albeit for various causes, by China.

“Whoever comes to power, I can assure you, the first call will be Trump, but the second will be Xi Jinping,” says Parsifal D’Sola Alvarado, a specialist in China–Latin America relations.

D’Sola Alvarado heads the Fundacion Andres Bello (Latin American-Chinese Research Center) primarily based in Bogota, Colombia and the Spanish capital Madrid. He beforehand labored with Venezuelan opposition determine Juan Guaido, the place he managed contacts with Chinese officers.

Beijing steps again

Speaking with DW, D’Sola Alvarado stated he doubts China would stand firmly behind Maduro within the occasion of a confrontation with Washington.

Beyond diplomatic and political help, he finds it “highly unlikely that China will offer more proactive support to Maduro, selling arms, or new large investments. China doesn’t want more problems with the US.”

China nonetheless purchases nearly all of Venezuela’s oil. According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA)almost two-thirds of Venezuelan crude exports went to China in 2023, whereas 23% went to the US.

Before Washington imposed sweeping sanctions on Venezuela’s state oil firm PDVSA in 2019 — having earlier blocked its entry to US monetary markets in 2017 — the US had been the nation’s largest buyer. Production and exports tumbled quickly afterward.

OPEC knowledge exhibits that Venezuela’s crude exports fell to simply below 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) in 2021, persevering with a decline that lengthy predated sanctions. Output had peaked at nearly 2 million bpd in 2015 earlier than sliding steadily attributable to years of mismanagement, corruption, and power underinvestment.

Chevron revives output

Only in 2023 did manufacturing start to get well, with exports rising to 655,000 bpd in 2024 and reaching 921,000 bpd in November this 12 months.

The rebound owes a lot to the United States, not China.

In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Washington eased some restrictions on Venezuela, with the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control granting US oil main Chevron particular licenses to renew exports from its Venezuelan joint ventures. In October 2025, the corporate acquired contemporary authorization to supply oil there.

“The recovery of oil production in Venezuela has happened because of Chevron,” Francisco J. Monaldi, an energy-policy specialist at Rice University’s Baker Institute in Houston Texas, informed DW. Chevron now accounts for almost 1 / 4 of Venezuela’s whole output.

Maduro greeted the renewed US permissions with enthusiasm. Speaking on state broadcaster TeleSUR in July 2025, he stated: “Chevron has been present in Venezuela for 102 years, and I hope the company works here for another 100 years without problems.”

China’s fading footprint

While Chevron expands, Chinese funding is restricted to smaller-scale tasks. China Concord Resources Corp has reportedly begun creating two oil fields, with an funding of about $1 billion (€850 million) deliberate to spice up manufacturing to 60,000 bpd by the top of 2026.

But Beijing’s state-backed growth lenders such because the China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank of China have successfully shut their wallets by not issuing new loans to Caracas since 2016, in line with the Global Development Policy Center — a assume tank primarily based at Boston University within the US.

Much of Venezuela’s roughly $60 billion debt to China has been lowered by way of restructurings and oil-for-loan offers.

Combined with the dearth of latest lending, scaled-back diplomacy, and quiet outreach to Venezuela’s opposition, D’Sola Alvarado sees unmistakable indicators that Beijing is “not completely backing Maduro.”

He notes China had already grown annoyed by 2011, when $8 billion in Chinese funds “just disappeared” from the Sino-Venezuelan Investment Fund. “Chinese authorities were very disappointed how everything turned out and [how] all this crumbled because of corruption,” stated D’Sola Alvarado.

A shift with limits

US sanctions, he argues, weren’t the principle motive for China’s retreat, slightly “just one more nail in the coffin” of bilateral relations.

Even if energy adjustments fingers in Caracas, D’Sola Alvarado believes China would face restricted financial penalties and no “major losses.”

The larger shift can be geopolitical, nevertheless, with Beijing now not having direct entry to the Venezuelan authorities and its networks. ” So it’s always worthy to have one foot inside for the Chinese,” he added.

This article was initially written in German.