Chevron, Venezuela and Ethics

“It is not the American sanctions that make investment insecure. It is the regime of Nicolás Maduro that represents the source of instability”.

For years, Chevron defended his permanence in Venezuela as a strategic pragmatism decision. He argued that maintaining operations in the country – despite the sanctions, institutional collapse and unbridled authoritarianism – allowed the United States to conserve a position in a key energy corridor and counteract the growing influence of China and Russia. But as the political and geoeconomic terrain moves under the feet of the regime of Nicolás Maduro, that logic becomes increasingly unsustainable.

On May 27, the formal end of that narrative will mark. Under the hardening of US sanctions, Chevron will cease all exports of oil diluents to Venezuela and suspend imports of Venezuelan crude to refineries in the Gulf of America. The administration of Donald Trump, in his second term, has decided to close what remained of the “silent accommodation” that allowed multinationals to operate within the Venezuelan criminal state without major consequences.

The situation is not accidental. Maduro’s regime is going through its moment of greatest weakness in years. Internal fractures, economic collapse and renewed International pressure have begun to erode the pillars of their power. A political transition, previously considered remote, is now perceived as a plausible scenario – and even probable. In this context, companies that maintain close links with the regime could discover that the reputational cost of their presence far exceeds any commercial gain.

A business -based business model

Venezuela’s collapse is widely documented. The most prosperous country in Latin America is once a regional black hole: more than 7 million people have fled and the State has been captured by an alliance between military, criminal networks and foreign sponsors in Moscow, Tehran and Havana. Oil revenues no longer finance development: they support repression and hemispheric destabilization.

Chevron, which has 32 % participation in mixed companies with PDVSA and came to export up to three times more crude than it legally corresponded to it, it was consolidated as the main export channel of Venezuelan oil to the United States. He also sent refined products – wagons, lubricants, diluents – in volumes much larger than those required by their operations.

For years, this arrangement was tolerated under the argument of “energy security.” But in practice, it allowed a sanctioned regime to turn oil into strong currencies, avoiding the Central Bank of Venezuela and international financial scrutiny. That complicity is no longer viable. The new Washington approach responds to a broader recalibration: multinationals cannot claim neutrality while operating within authoritarian structures that convert economic activity into a control tool.

The end of transactional exceptionality

Chevron is not the only company that faces this adjustment of accounts, but it is the most exposed. He remained in Venezuela when Exxonmobil and Conocophillips retired in 2007, refusing to accept the mixed companies imposed by the 2001 Hydrocarbons Law. Those companies went to international arbitrations and won. Chevron, on the other hand, lent 2,000 million dollars to PDVSA and accumulated more than 3,000 million in unpaid dividends and debts around 2021.

That decision could have guaranteed access to the short -term market, but also diluted the ethical borders of the business commitment. Today, Marcos ESG (environment, social and governance), institutional investors and political risk analysts observe long -term liabilities to operate in collapsed states.

In a post-miladuro Venezuela, companies received as regime collaborators could be legally or reputationally excluded from the national reconstruction process. Those that demonstrate a clear cut with the past could, however, become pioneer actors within one of the most promising markets of the hemisphere.

An opportunity of 1 billion dollars … if the principles prevail

The figures matter. A post-maduro Venezuela opens more than 1 billion dollars in opportunities in sectors such as energy, infrastructure, agriculture, technology and financial services. But the conditions of access to that future will be both political and economic. International partners will be chosen not only for their technical capacity, but for their institutional credibility.

In this context, an imminent retirement of Chevron should not be interpreted as a commercial defeat, but as an opportunity for restart. A moment to move from extraction to commitment. Of the operational presence to leadership with principles.

For companies that operate in the margins of collapsed authoritarianism, the lesson is clear: neutrality is a fiction. Silence has a price. And in the new geopolitical order, ethics is the most valuable asset of all.

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