The future of billions of barrels of Venezuelan oil that foreign companies are entitled to under current agreements has been thrown into doubt following Washington’s capture of President Nicolás Maduro over the weekend.
State-owned Chinese and Russian companies have some of the biggest claims on the Latin American nation’s oil, Morgan Stanley analysts including Martijn Rats said in a note. Nevertheless, the significant assets are still far outweighed by the more than 200 billion barrels held by Petroleos de Venezuela SA.
“The crucial question is what will happen with Venezuela’s production from here. This remains hard to forecast,” the analysts said. “Over the medium term, however, risks to production are clearly to the upside, at least from a resource and technical perspective.”
China Petroleum & Chemical Corp., known as Sinopec, has around 2.8 billion barrels of oil that it’s entitled to in Venezuela, followed by Roszarubezhneft and China National Petroleum Corp., Morgan Stanley said, citing data from consultant Wood Mackenzie. Roszarubezhneft bought Rosneft PJSC’s assets in the Latin American country in 2020.
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