Company
Venezuelan oil producer overseen by Alejandro Betancourt, with Lake Maracaibo and Orinoco Belt fields; second-largest private operator after Chevron.
The August 28 concession hands 17 fields and an estimated 65 billion barrels of reserves to NABEP, whose current output is about 200,000 barrels a day against a target of roughly 500,000 by the end of 2028.
Reality
Mark Paoletta's June 2025 opinion, reviewed by Semafor, called the deal necessary to avoid an imminent threat to human life and government property. The Pentagon has since taken equity or warrants in at least 10 companies.
Reality
Caracas puts the bill above $100 billion for reserves the White House says more than double America's, a stock claim with no schedule attached while the only new barrels come from Chevron tuning old wells.
Perspective Coverage
5 publishersReality
Fred Ehrsam's Primavera holds a production-sharing contract with PDVSA in the Orinoco Belt, where Rystad Energy expects significant new output only around 2035 and calls execution, not geology, the binding constraint.
Reality
The Office of Strategic Capital was chartered in 2022 to lend against critical technology. Its loan authority has since reached $200bn, and the price of its new 35% oil stake is described only as no cost to the taxpayer.
Reality
Washington's cut of the new Venezuelan oil venture arrives without Washington writing a cheque. The arithmetic leaves private capital about 52 cents of every dollar of market-priced output, before anyone establishes who owned the fields.
Reality
Brent at $92 reads as a supply story, but the harder move is a 30-year Treasury at 5.278%, and what sits between them is a peace deal Washington keeps declining and 65 billion Venezuelan barrels it wants to own.
Reality
Alejandro Betancourt is helping the Trump administration pick assets and partners in Caracas. With no competitive bidding and majors staying out, the beneficiaries are small US operators.
Reality