Venezuela on Thursday granted British oil giant Shell a license to explore and export natural gas, as it joins the ranks of multinational companies rushing to tap the country’s vast oil and gas reserves.
Interim President Delcy Rodriguez opened the sector to foreign investment in January, pushing a reform law through Venezuela’s legislature under pressure from Washington following its capture of former president Nicolas Maduro in a US military operation.
Rodriguez said Shell will develop the Loran field, which had been abandoned for 23 years, and comprises seven natural gas deposits, six of them straddling the maritime border with Trinidad and Tobago.
She said the project would allow Venezuela “to take a very important step forward in its gas development and also as a gas exporter”.
Venezuela is thought to have the largest oil reserves in the world and is also rich in natural gas.
Shell representatives earlier Thursday also visited the facilities of the Muscar Operational Complex, a gas processing and distribution center in Monagas state in the country’s northeast, according to state-owned oil company PDVSA.
In 2023, Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago signed an agreement with Shell for the production and export of gas from another field, Dragon, which holds 120 billion cubic meters of gas and had operated intermittently during the oil embargo imposed on Venezuela by the US in 2019.
The Rodriguez administration has signed agreements with several of the world’s leading oil companies, including Britain’s BP and Spain’s Repsol.