Venezuela Oil Output Hits Seven-Year High as Brent Tops $100

A recovery the numbers now support

Venezuela's oil industry has reached a level of output it has not seen since the late 2010s. The production figures from different trackers now point in the same direction, even though they still disagree on the exact number. OPEC's secondary-source estimates, which come from independent data providers rather than from Caracas, put Venezuelan crude output at 1.145 million barrels per day in August, up from 1.122 million in July1. The International Energy Agency's September oil market report put August supply slightly higher, at 1.16 million barrels per day, up from 1.12 million the month before3. One analysis of OPEC secondary-source data calls mid-2026 output a seven-year high, compared with 715,000 barrels per day in 2022 and an average of 941,000 in 202536.

The Venezuelan government reports bigger numbers. Interim President Delcy Rodríguez told the Fedecamaras business federation's annual assembly on October 8 that production had risen 8% over the past year to 1.25 million barrels per day14. PDVSA's own reports to OPEC showed 1.2 million barrels per day in July and 1.201 million in August, which is close to flat. The independent series, by contrast, shows steady growth. PDVSA president Héctor Obregón has publicly cited 1.23 million barrels per day, which is about 113,000 barrels a day more than OPEC's independent estimate for July11. Part of the gap has been put down to how natural-gas liquids and condensate are counted5.

The gap matters, but the trend is clear. On every major measure, Venezuela is pumping more oil than at any point in years. Output has grown by roughly 400,000 barrels per day since late 202517.

How it got here

The political backdrop is unlike anything in recent oil history. U.S. forces captured Nicolás Maduro on January 3, 2026. Within weeks, Rodríguez pushed through the biggest overhaul of the country's hydrocarbons law in decades11. The National Assembly approved the reform unanimously on January 29. It created a new contract type, the CPPH, that lets private companies explore, produce and export crude without forming a joint venture with PDVSA17. PDVSA says 61 contracts have now been signed under the new framework, with 44 more targeted before December 3111.

Washington followed with a series of licenses allowing U.S. companies to trade, ship, refine and invest in Venezuelan oil12. In early September, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright signed a deal giving North American Blue Energy Partners (NABEP) 100-year concessions over 17 fields holding about 65 billion barrels of proven reserves. A U.S. government department holds a 35% stake in the company13. Around the same time, Chevron said it would invest more than $7 billion over five years to roughly double output from its Venezuelan joint ventures to about 600,000 barrels per day31. Eni signed on to run the giant Junín 5 heavy-oil field, which holds 35 billion barrels of oil in place but currently produces only about 12,000 barrels per day19.

This growth came early in the year, before most of the big announcements. In March, OPEC data showed output still below 2025's third-quarter peak10. The gains since then have mostly come from restarting existing fields, not from new investment. PDVSA's showcase example is the Campo Zamora field, where it says output rose from 20,000 to more than 100,000 barrels per day after the new contract model was applied17.

Why prices have barely noticed

Venezuela's oil is not setting crude prices this year, and that may be the most important point for markets. Brent was trading around $103 on October 1222. It came close to $105 over the weekend as attacks by Iran-backed Houthi militants on Saudi Arabia and a drone strike on a tanker off Oman raised supply fears26. The benchmark is up about 60% from a year ago and has traded between $58.72 and $126.41 over the past 52 weeks23. The driving forces are in the Middle East: tanker attacks in the Gulf, an Iranian refusal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and a G7 release of emergency stocks30. On October 4, OPEC+ kept its November targets unchanged, with core members producing about 5 million barrels per day below pre-war levels30.

Against a disruption that size, about 400,000 extra Venezuelan barrels can only soften prices slightly. Early forecasts got the scale of this story wrong. In January, Goldman Sachs expected Brent to average $56 in 2026 and Venezuelan output to stay flat at 900,000 barrels per day2. Both forecasts were badly off. Goldman's longer-term estimate looks more useful. It put the price impact at about $4 a barrel lower by 2030 if Venezuela reaches 2 million barrels per day2. Even successful Venezuelan growth would be a slow drag on prices, not a sudden shock.

A few commentators have argued that Venezuelan barrels could push Brent down sharply and put pressure on OPEC20. That view does not fit current prices. Venezuela is exempt from OPEC+ cuts3, so its growth does not directly squeeze anyone's quota. And in a market short of supply, extra heavy crude is being bought up, not weighing on prices.

Where Venezuela does matter is in which crudes buyers can get. India's Venezuelan imports are expected to roughly double in October to about 465,000 barrels per day, which would be the highest since December 2019. Reliance is taking discounted Merey crude as Russian supplies get more expensive18. U.S. imports reached 782,000 barrels per day in the week ending September 11, the highest weekly figure since August 201731. Gulf Coast refineries were built to process this kind of heavy, sour crude5.

The logistics problem behind the headline

Recent shipping data shows how fragile the export side is. Exports fell about 9% in September to 1.08 million barrels per day. Rising freight costs led trading houses such as Vitol and Trafigura to demand bigger discounts from PDVSA, and tankers were rerouted as a result. Shipping an Aframax cargo from the José terminal to the U.S. Gulf Coast reportedly costs about $5 per barrel, up from roughly $1.90 at the start of the year. High benchmark prices do not help Venezuela much if freight costs and discounts eat into what it actually earns per barrel.

The IEA's numbers highlight the production ceiling. It puts Venezuela's sustainable capacity at 1.12 million barrels per day, slightly below August output, which leaves effectively no spare capacity3. Analysts say the main limits are physical. Kpler points to rig shortages and decayed infrastructure, and expects the push to add another 200,000 barrels per day and reach 1.4 million by year-end to hit operational problems17. One report counts only two active drilling rigs in the country. Rystad Energy estimates about 50 rigs would be needed by 2028 to reach 1.6 million barrels per day, and nearly 80 by 2030 to reach 1.8 million19.

The wider infrastructure is in similar shape. Refineries built mostly in the 1950s and 1960s are running at about a third of capacity15. Former PDVSA executive Luis Pacheco describes the western pipeline network and eastern gas infrastructure as badly deteriorated15. In Zulia state, output of 350,000 to 370,000 barrels per day has nearly reached PDVSA's own target for the region. That suggests the easy gains from restarting existing equipment there are largely used up36.

The forecasts, ranked by credibility

The targets vary widely. The government is aiming for 1.4 million barrels per day by the end of 2026, more than 1.5 million in 2027 and 3 million by 203017. Wright has said output will exceed 2 million by 2030, which is closer to what analysts expect17. Kpler also sees about 2 million by the end of the decade, assuming political stability and wider participation by major oil companies11. Rystad's more optimistic scenario has 1.6 million in 2028, 1.8 million in 2030 and about 2.58 million by 203519.

The outside forecasts deserve more weight than the government's. In our view, the recent jump in output is real but mostly behind Venezuela now. Getting the next 500,000 barrels per day will take years of spending on rigs, power and pipelines, not just more signed contracts. Chevron's track record is the strongest sign that growth can continue: the company says its Venezuelan output has risen from 40,000 to about 250,000 barrels per day over the past few years13. Political risk has not gone away either. Chevron's license was revoked in February 2025 and reissued only in restricted form months later36. Lawyers and analysts have also questioned the legal structure of the NABEP deal and the lack of competitive bidding15.

For now, the oil market is focused on Hormuz, not the Orinoco. Venezuela's output growth is a real improvement for the country and a welcome source of heavy crude for refiners in the U.S. and India. It is not the kind of supply increase that could bring Brent back below $100 on its own.