WASHINGTON — Republicans criticized the Biden administration for years for allowing Chevron to export oil from Venezuela, arguing that it helped finance President Nicolás Maduro’s totalitarian and corrupt government.
After returning to power, President Donald Trump halted and then changed the terms of Chevron’s operations in Venezuela, contending that it minimizes the company’s financial transfers to the country. Rather than funneling dollars into Venezuela directly, Chevron now hands part of the oil it produces to the Venezuelan government, which continues to own the oil fields.
But data shows the biggest beneficiary of the new arrangement has been a businessperson the U.S. government has imposed sanctions on for working with the Maduro family.
Internal data from Venezuela’s state oil company, known as PDVSA, shows that an oil trading company linked to the sanctioned businessperson has sold all of the crude that the Venezuelan government has received from Chevron’s largest oil field since the Trump administration allowed the company to resume exporting from Venezuela this summer.
Since July, the trading company connected to the businessperson, a Panamanian named Ramón Carretero, has sold roughly $500 million worth of crude from the Petroboscán oil field, the data shows.
The Trump administration appears to be aware of the potential windfall for the Maduro regime and moved Tuesday to cut it off. Trump on Tuesday night declared that he was imposing a “blockade’’ on sanctioned oil tankers moving into or out of Venezuela.
Last Thursday, the U.S. Treasury Department applied sanctions on Carretero for working “on behalf of the Venezuelan government.”
Carretero has “engaged in lucrative contracts with the Maduro regime and has had various business dealings with the Maduro-Flores family, including partnering in several companies together,” the agency said in a statement, referring to Maduro’s wife, Cilia Flores.
“The administration has been consistent in denying any funding the Maduro regime uses to oppress the Venezuelan people,” Anna Kelly, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement.
A spokesperson for the Treasury said it closely monitors the sanctions programs and takes claims of violations seriously.
The White House and Treasury both said they cannot comment on specific licenses. The State Department did not respond to requests for comment.
Carretero, through a legal representative, declined to comment.
Chevron, in a statement in response to questions for this article, said its “operations in Venezuela continue in full compliance with laws and regulations applicable to its business, as well as the sanctions frameworks provided for by the U.S. government.”
Carretero’s oil trade underlines the conflicting tactics pursued by the Trump administration in its escalating standoff with Maduro, whom it has labeled a “narcoterrorist.”
On the one hand, the Trump administration has moved to cut off Maduro’s funding and isolate his government, including seizing a tanker last week tied to Carretero.
On the other, the White House has allowed Chevron to continue working in Venezuela to preserve the United States’ footprint in a country with vast natural reserves, according to people close to the administration.
This has put Chevron in the position of having to simultaneously meet the legal demands of Washington and Caracas.
Chevron produces about 240,000 barrels of oil in Venezuela — more than a fifth of the country’s total — and represents a major part of the country’s economy. Last year, under its previous arrangement with the Biden administration, Chevron funneled nearly $2.4 billion into the Venezuelan economy, about a third of Venezuela’s entire legal hard currency supply that year.
Venezuela’s oil industry has been under U.S. sanctions since 2019, when Trump had an earlier standoff with Maduro during his first White House term. He banned American entities from working with PDVSA in an effort to pressure Maduro to leave office.
To work in Venezuela, Western firms need to obtain special licenses from the U.S. Treasury.
Despite claims by Republicans and the Venezuelan opposition, the license issued to Chevron by the Biden administration in 2022 directed funds to channels outside the direct control of Venezuela’s government.
Chevron sold the oil that it produced in Venezuela to the United States and deposited the share of the proceeds it owed the Venezuelan government in dollars into designated private Venezuelan banks. Those banks then sold the dollars directly to businesses that used them to import goods and make investments, propelling the country’s modest recent economic recovery.
Bypassing the government, the arrangement was meant to benefit American businesses and improve living conditions for Venezuelans.
The deal was also meant to reduce Venezuela’s economic reliance on China by offering the country a legal pathway to sell its natural resources, through Chevron, to the United States, according to former and current U.S. officials.
Shortly after returning to office in January, Trump scrapped Chevron’s license, calling the deal a concession to Maduro by “Crooked Joe Biden.” He ordered the company to begin winding down operations in Venezuela.
The hiatus in Chevron’s operations proved short-lived. Following a lobbying effort, which included several conversations between Trump and Mike Wirth, Chevron’s chief executive, the Treasury Department issued the company a new license in July, according to U.S. and Venezuelan officials, and people inside the Venezuelan oil industry.
Under the new license, which has not been made public, the company was no longer to pay royalties through private banks but instead had to give PDVSA its share of the oil as an in-kind payment.
PDVSA data shows that the main direct financial beneficiaries of Chevron’s current license has been a trading firm controlled by Carretero, the businessperson now under sanctions for ties to Maduro.
The data shows that the firm, Shineful Energy, has won all the contracts to export PDVSA’s share of the crude from Petroboscán since July. Those contracts add up to nearly 11 million barrels.
That oil is owned and distributed by PDVSA, and Chevron plays no part in its sale.
Shineful exports Venezuelan oil almost exclusively to China, in complex transactions involving cryptocurrency, according to people inside Venezuela’s oil industry, who discussed sensitive topics on condition of anonymity.
The people said it is unclear where that revenue goes but added that it does not stream directly into Venezuela’s economy. The amount of hard currency entering Venezuela’s formal economy this year has actually fallen significantly, even as the country’s oil exports have risen, economic data shows.
Under the Biden administration deal, Chevron had exported all the oil that it produced in Venezuela and delivered it to refineries in the United States through its in-house trading arm, the PDVSA data shows.
Shipping data shows that Chevron has continued exporting its contractual share of crude oil production in Venezuela after the Trump administration seized the oil tanker, which is called Skipper and was heading toward Asia. That ship carried oil owned by another company tied to Carretero.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times. © 2025 The New York Times
