Chevron Is Essential to Venezuela’s Economy — and Trump Knows It

  • US driller has oil sector on track to grow 17% in 2025
  • License a ‘challenging card to play’ in talks with Maduro

The Chevron Corp. El Segundo Refinery in El Segundo, California.

Photographer: Kyle Grillot/Bloomberg
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One of the key reasons Venezuela’s economy is slowly recovering from the worst collapse in modern history is an oil giant 2,200 miles away: Chevron Corp.

The Houston-based company, which has a US waiver to operate in Venezuela despite sanctions against Nicolás Maduro’s authoritarian regime, has helped lift the Andean nation’s crude production back above 1 million barrels per day, stoking an economy that lives and breathes oil.