The acting Rodríguez administration has granted increased control and fiscal benefits to energy corporations. (Hydrocarbons Ministry)
Caracas, July 13, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – The Venezuelan government has approved a new set of oil industry regulations that prioritize the “economic and financial viability” of private sector investment.
Acting President Delcy Rodríguez signed the statute on Wednesday, July 8, and it was published in the National Gazette. Rodríguez hailed the directive a “historic step” that will “transform our energy reserves into development.”
“These norms establish clear rules, greater legal certainty, and a favorable environment for the cooperation between the [Venezuelan] state and national and foreign capital,” the acting president said.
Western oil executives and Trump officials have aggressively lobbied to tailor the new rules to their interests after seeing preliminary drafts. White House energy advisor Jarrod Agen stated that he had contact with Rodríguez and her team “multiple times a day” to offer input on the regulations and contract models.
The 122-article text establishes the framework for the implementation of the reformed Hydrocarbon Law approved by the Venezuelan National Assembly in late January. The legislative overhaul replaced the 2001 Hydrocarbon Law approved by former President Hugo Chávez and subsequent decrees that established a leading role for the Venezuelan state in the energy sector.
Under the new law, private sector companies can take over oilfield operations and sales as minority joint venture partners, or via concession-type agreements.
The legislation also slashed royalties and fiscal contributions. The former was capped at 30 percent, and a former extraction tax was replaced by an “integrated hydrocarbon tax” with a 15 percent maximum.
However, the new statute defines a “combined contribution” of royalties and the integrated tax ranging from 20 percent for undeveloped greenfields to 35 percent for currently active brownfields, meaning an effective 10 percent further reduction from the 45 percent maximum defined under the law.
Companies are eligible for additional 5 percent discounts in their combined contribution if they run offshore operations or if their business plans include “building or amplifying crude transformation, upgrading, or refining plants.”
Income tax was lowered from 50 to 34 percent for greenfields under the 2026 legislation. But the regulations establish that companies can request further reductions to their royalty, integrated tax, and income tax contributions if necessary to attain “economic equilibrium.” The decisions will be taken by the Venezuelan executive on a case-by-case basis without any mandatory oversight from the National Assembly.
The reformed energy law allowed legal disputes to be settled by international arbitration bodies, with Venezuelan officials promising “legal certainty” to investors. The new norms permit arbitration re via “alternative mechanisms,” with analysts suggesting that the vague language aims to avoid any clashes with US sanctions.
The directive also set an obligation to capture “associated gas” in oil extraction operations, which can be used for reinjection or transformed into cooking gas. Historically, it has been mostly flared. Oilfield operators are likewise mandated to secure their electricity supply. The Venezuelan National Assembly is presently working on reforms to open electricity generation, transmission, distribution, and commercialization to the private sector.
The enacted framework goes on to establish environmental responsibilities, oversight mechanisms, and penalties for non-compliance. State oil company PDVSA is not mentioned at all in the text.
Venezuelan oil expert Blas Regnault told Venezuelanalysis that the new norms risk turning the oil sector into an “enclave.”
“The regulations organize oil activity but do not guarantee that it will be integrated into the national economy,” he explained. Regnault warned that empowering corporations to negotiate royalties on an individual case-by-case basis “turns a sovereign right into a flexible variable in a contractual regime” in what is an “unusual” practice for oil-producing nations.
“Royalties are not taxes. They represent the sovereign right of the owner of the resource, and thus should be universally established, not negotiated project by project,” he underscored.
The pro-business opening of Venezuela’s most important industry has seen major Western corporations, including Chevron, Shell, and BP, ink agreements or memoranda of understanding with the acting Rodríguez administration to develop new projects or establish more favorable conditions in existing ones.
For its part, the Trump administration has kept in place sanctions against the Venezuelan oil industry, though it has issued a number of licenses allowing US and Western enterprises to enter into agreements with Caracas. However, the waivers mandate that all royalty, tax, and dividend payments be deposited in a US Treasury-run account, while also blocking transactions with firms from China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Russia.
The maintenance of US sanctions has slowed new investment, while the Trump administration has so far returned only a fraction of Venezuelan export revenues to Caracas.
The dire economic situation is indexed in persistent inflation and stagnating oil production. Venezuela’s crude output plateaued after four consecutive months of growth, with June’s 1.070 million barrel-per-day (bpd) output virtually unchanged from May, according to OPEC secondary sources. The figure remains the highest since early 2019.
For its part, PDVSA reported 1.187 million bpd in June, up from 1,179 million bpd in May. Direct and secondary measurements have historically differed over disagreements on the inclusion of condensates and natural gas liquids.
The South American country’s main crude extraction areas, in the eastern and western regions, were largely unaffected by June 24’s double earthquake, with no major disruptions to operations reported.
Edited by Lucas Koerner in Caracas.t issued a number of licenses allowing US and Western enterprises to enter into agreements with Caracas. However, the waivers mandate that all royalty, tax, and dividend payments be deposited in a US Treasury-run account, while also blocking transactions with firms from China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Russia.
Venezuela’s oil production has stagnated after four consecutive months of growth, with June’s 1.070 million barrel-per-day (bpd) output virtually unchanged from May, according to OPEC secondary sources. The figure remains the highest since early 2019.
For its part, PDVSA reported 1.187 million bpd in June, up from 1,179 million bpd in May. Direct and secondary measurements have historically differed over disagreements on the inclusion of condensates and natural gas liquids.
The South American country’s main crude extraction areas, in the eastern and western regions, were largely unaffected by June 24’s double earthquake, with no major disruptions to operations reported.
Edited by Lucas Koerner in Caracas.
July 10 (Asia Today) — U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick called for Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix to expand production in the United States as Micron accelerates a major domestic investment plan, raising questions over whether Washington is signaling continued shortages in artificial intelligence memory chips.
Lutnick referred directly to Samsung and SK Hynix at Micron’s large-scale investment site in the United States. Micron is building a production plant in Clay, N.Y.
Lutnick said he wanted to bring Micron competitors Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix to the United States and have them build production facilities there.
The remarks drew attention in South Korea because Samsung and SK Hynix recently announced plans to invest 800 trillion won, about $530 billion, in the Honam region in southwestern South Korea. Industry officials had already expected Washington to push the Korean chipmakers to increase U.S. investment.
Because Lutnick directly named the two companies and urged investment, attention is now focused on how the remarks could affect Samsung and SK Hynix.
Some analysts also said the call for production investment in the United States, the central market for artificial intelligence, may indicate that memory semiconductors remain in short supply despite debate over whether the chip market is nearing a peak.
Micron said Wednesday it will expand investment in U.S. fabrication plants and technology to more than $250 billion by 2035. The company has set a goal of producing 40% of its DRAM in the United States and will move up part of its New York fabrication plant construction schedule.
Lutnick’s message that he also wants Samsung and SK Hynix to invest locally is fueling expectations that the surge in semiconductor demand could continue for some time.
Some stock market analysts have recently raised concerns that large artificial intelligence data center operators, known as hyperscalers, could slow the pace of investment. But industry officials still expect supply and demand to begin moving toward balance no earlier than 2028.
Others see Lutnick’s remarks as a sign that the U.S. government is reviving pressure for local investment after a quieter period. The comments came one day before SK Hynix’s Nasdaq listing of American depositary receipts, prompting speculation that Washington may want funds raised through the listing to be invested in the United States rather than South Korea.
Since 2025, the United States has imposed reciprocal tariffs and temporary import surcharges. Semiconductors are currently excluded, but the U.S. government has suggested it could impose tariffs of up to 100% on all semiconductor imports. Earlier this year, President Donald Trump pressured memory chipmakers to invest in the United States, saying companies that do not build plants domestically could face 100% tariffs.
With Samsung and SK Hynix recently announcing a combined 800 trillion won investment plan in South Korea, industry observers said pressure for additional U.S. investment could grow. Lutnick’s latest comments were seen as moving in that direction.
Similar views have emerged overseas. Japan’s Nikkei recently said that because Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix together account for about 60% of the global memory market, the U.S. administration could raise monopoly concerns and demand relocation or investment in the United States.
— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI
© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.
Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260710010003905
Visitors look around an LG Energy Solution booth at the InterBattery 2021 at COEX in Seoul, South Korea. Photo by YONHAP / EPA
July 3 (Asia Today) — A U.S. battery joint venture between South Korea’s LG Energy Solution and Honda has begun mass-producing lithium-ion cells for energy storage systems at its Ohio plant, the company said.
L-H Battery Company began production Thursday at its factory in Jeffersonville, Fayette County.
The cells will be supplied through LG Energy Solution Vertech, the South Korean company’s North American energy-storage system integration subsidiary.
They are expected to be used in utility power grids as well as commercial, industrial and residential energy-storage systems across the United States.
The Ohio plant was originally built primarily to manufacture batteries for Honda electric vehicles.
The partners adjusted the factory’s production strategy as growth in the electric-vehicle market slowed and changes in the U.S. regulatory and policy environment increased uncertainty for automakers and battery manufacturers.
The joint venture decided to prioritize the faster-growing energy-storage market while maintaining the flexibility to produce cells for other applications.
It plans to consider manufacturing batteries for hybrid-electric vehicles at the plant as market conditions evolve.
Honda said in May that it would convert part of the joint venture’s electric-vehicle battery production lines to make batteries for hybrid vehicles.
The company also said it would use the Ohio battery facilities for other applications as it restructures its North American vehicle and battery production network.
Honda canceled plans in March to develop and launch three electric-vehicle models that had been scheduled for production in North America, citing changes in the business environment.
The start of storage-battery production marks a significant step in LG Energy Solution’s strategy to manufacture more energy-storage products within North America.
Demand is rising as utilities add renewable-energy capacity and seek batteries that can store electricity when supply exceeds consumption.
Artificial intelligence data centers are also increasing electricity demand and creating a need for additional power-generation, transmission and storage infrastructure.
Energy-storage systems can help stabilize power grids by storing electricity during periods of low demand and releasing it when demand rises.
LG Energy Solution has been converting or adapting electric-vehicle battery facilities to produce storage batteries as manufacturers respond to slower electric-vehicle growth.
The company plans to operate five energy-storage battery manufacturing sites in North America.
The network includes plants in Holland and Lansing, Mich., the NextStar Energy facility in Windsor, Ontario, the Ultium Cells factory in Spring Hill, Tenn., and the L-H Battery Company plant in Ohio.
LG Energy Solution said it aims to secure more than 50 gigawatt-hours of annual energy-storage battery production capacity in North America by the end of 2026.
The company said batteries manufactured in Ohio will support projects serving power grids, businesses and homes.
BloombergNEF has projected that the U.S. energy-storage market could expand to 485 gigawatt-hours in 2030 and 976 gigawatt-hours in 2035.
“Energy storage systems are an important future business for L-H Battery Company and will become a core business pillar along with the production of battery cells for hybrid-electric vehicles,” L-H Battery Company Chief Executive Officer Koo Ja-hoon said.
Chief Operating Officer Rick Riggle said the company has hired employees and begun production since the joint venture was established in 2023.
“This start of mass production is significant because it goes beyond simply operating a plant and establishes a stable production base for our North American business,” Riggle said.
LG Energy Solution and Honda formally established L-H Battery Company in 2023 to manufacture lithium-ion batteries in Ohio.
The joint venture was initially designed to support Honda’s expanding electric-vehicle production in North America.
The revised production strategy allows the companies to use the plant for energy storage and hybrid vehicles while retaining the ability to respond if electric-vehicle demand recovers.
— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI
© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.
Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260703010001209
Central bank bottlenecks and massive import costs delay the impact of a $4B windfall.
War-torn Libya is pumping oil at its fastest pace in more than a decade, averaging about 1.4 million barrels per day in April, according to National Oil Corp. operating data.
Still, refining capacity, distribution networks, and subsidy-financed imports remain strained by years of institutional division since the 2011 conflict, when production fell sharply from about 1.5 million barrels per day to near-collapse levels during the civil war.
The imbalance reflects Libya’s fragmented downstream system, where crude oil exports continue but refining capacity, distribution networks, and subsidy-financed imports remain strained by years of institutional disruption since the 2011 uprising and the overthrow of longtime dictator Muammar Gaddafi, when production fell sharply.
The state-owned NOC reported $2.82 billion in gross oil revenue in April, followed by nearly $4 billion in May, the highest monthly intake in over 10 years, according to local energy reports citing official data. Crude flows through Es Sider, Ras Lanuf, and Zawiya terminals into Mediterranean markets, where it is priced against Brent-linked benchmarks.
Translating stronger production and upstream earnings into direct benefits to the state and its people remains challenging, however.
The May surge coincided with a sharp increase in fuel imports; NOC Chairman Masoud Suleman confirmed the contracting of 17 gasoline tankers, the highest monthly fuel import volume in Libya’s history. Even as import activity rose, several cities in western Libya reported fuel shortages and long queues at filling stations, exposing persistent breakdowns in domestic distribution.
The cash conversion of oil earnings is still structurally uneven. In April, only $1.91 billion of $2.82 billion in gross revenue reached the Central Bank of Libya after fuel-import and settlement deductions routed through the Libyan Foreign Bank mechanism. That left roughly $910 million stuck within upstream settlement layers awaiting final transfer into the sovereign liquidity system.
On June 3, the central bank launched a $3.5 billion foreign currency allocation program to cover letters of credit (LOCs), foreign transfers, and retail foreign-currency demand, according to Libyan financial disclosures, amid persistent import financing pressure on food, fuel, and industrial inputs.
The central bank sits at the center of this fiscal roundelay. It is the sole legal recipient of hydrocarbon revenues and converts inflows into domestic liquidity for salaries, imports, and foreign exchange allocations, making it the clearing hub for the national economy.
That role has repeatedly placed it at the center of political escalation. Last August, a dispute over central bank leadership triggered a production shutdown in the eastern half of the country that quickly cut output from nearly 959,000 barrels per day to 591,000, according to NOC data. The United Nations Support Mission in Libya warned that disruption of the central bank’s clearing function would freeze LOCs and salary payments, given that hydrocarbons account for more than 90% of export earnings.
The underlying political structure remains split between the UN-backed Government of National Unity in Tripoli and the Government of National Stability based in Benghazi and Tobruk in the east; UN mediation is ongoing, but national elections remain stalled. A rare shift occurred on April 11, however, when the rival eastern and western legislative bodies signed a landmark agreement to unify public spending, creating Libya’s first consolidated budget framework since 2013.
Production recovery continues. Libya is targeting 1.6 million barrels per day by the end of 2026, supported by the rehabilitation of mature fields across the Sirte and Murzuq basins and incremental drilling gains.
Investment is also returning at scale.
In February, Libya awarded oil and gas exploration licenses for the first time in 17 years, granting acreage to Chevron, Eni, QatarEnergy, and Repsol, alongside other global operators competing for the Sirte, Murzuq, and offshore Mediterranean blocks. The round followed broader upstream agreements involving TotalEnergies and ConocoPhillips, BP, Shell, and ExxonMobil, signaling renewed international exposure to Libya’s estimated 48.4 billion to 50 billion barrels of proven reserves, the largest in Africa.
Libya’s constraint is now fiscal rather than geological, the analytics firm Geopolitical Desk notes; production has stabilized, but “funding flows remain irregular, procurement cycles constrained, and fiscal authority contested across parallel administrations.”
The result is a landscape where record output, rising revenues, and partial political coordination coexist with fragmented financial execution, ensuring that Libya’s oil recovery is measured in barrels but constrained in how fully it translates into state power.
June 7 (UPI) — The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries on Sunday agreed to increase production by nearly 200,000 barrels per day despite the Strait of Hormuz remaining closed, making it near-impossible to ship any of it.
Ordinarily, OPEC increasing oil production among the group of nations that comprise it would lower its cost, but experts have called the move largely symbolic because of the ongoing war in Iran, The New York Times and Wall Street Journal reported.
The Strait of Hormuz, which 20% of the world’s oil supply ordinarily would pass through daily, has been closed since early in the war as part of Iran’s effort to counter the war launched by the United States and Israel in February.
The OPEC members that agreed to the 188,000-barrel increase for July — the fourth month in a row that the group is increasing production — include Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, Kuwait, Algeria, Kazakhstan and Oman.
The countries agreed to the increase as part of the group’s “commitment to support oil market stability” and said the latest production increase would also allow the participating nations to “accelerate their compensation,” OPEC said in a statement.
“The countries will continue to closely monitor and assess market conditions, and in their continuous efforts to support market stability, they reaffirmed the importance of a cautious approach,” the group said in the statement.
The Trump administration continues to negotiate an end to the war that would lead to the reopening of the Strait, in addition to working to limit Iran’s ability to build a nuclear weapon, amid a shaky weeks-long cease-fire.
Venezuelan oil revenues are currently controlled by the US Treasury Department. (Archive)
Caracas, May 15, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuelan oil production has moved past 1 million barrels per day (bpd) for the first time in over seven years.
The latest OPEC monthly report placed the Caribbean nation’s April output at 1.031 million bpd, as measured by secondary sources. The figure increased by 46,000 bpd compared to the previous month.
For its part, state oil company PDVSA reported April’s production at 1.136 million bpd, up from 1.095 million bpd in March. Direct and secondary measurements have differed over time due to disagreements over the inclusion of natural gas liquids and condensates.
With the oil industry under crushing US coercive measures, crude production plummeted from around 1.9 million bpd when the first sanctions were levied against PDVSA. Following the US imposition of an export embargo in January 2019, output fell under 1 million bpd, hitting decades-lows around 350,000 bpd in 2020 before a steady recovery in recent years.
Since the January 3 US military strikes against Venezuela and kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro, the Trump administration has imposed control over the nation’s energy sector, with revenues deposited in US Treasury-run accounts before being partially returned to Caracas at US officials’ discretion.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated on Thursday that “for the first time in over a decade the wealth of Venezuela is benefitting the people of Venezuela,” though he did not mention the impact of US sanctions first imposed in late 2014.
While US coercive measures remain in place, the White House has issued a series of licenses allowing Western corporations to return to the Venezuelan energy sector.
BP, Chevron, Eni, Repsol, and Shell are among the companies to have struck oil and natural gas contracts with the Venezuelan government led by Acting President Delcy Rodríguez in past weeks, taking advantage of a recent pro-business legislative overhaul that slashed royalties and taxes, granted private partners increased control over operations and sales, and opened the way for disputes to be settled in international arbitration bodies.
Lesser-known companies Overseas Oil and Crossover Energy have likewise inked agreements for energy projects in the South American country.
ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips are also evaluating prospects for a return to Venezuela, according to the Wall Street Journal. The two oil giants saw their assets nationalized by the former Hugo Chávez government in the 2000s after refusing to accept the country’s reforms asserting sovereignty over the industry. Both corporations would go on to secure compensation via international arbitration, with an award of over US $10 billion to ConocoPhillips still outstanding.
The recent rebound in oil production coincided with an increase in US-sourced diluent imports. Exports also surged in April to 1.23 million bpd, the highest figure in over seven years. Apart from a growing number of cargoes to US refineries, Indian refiner Reliance is receiving increased shipments after securing US Treasury approval.
In contrast, two tankers reportedly headed to China and Cuba, respectively, will return their cargoes to Venezuelan ports after being intercepted by US naval forces. Prior to the January 3 operation and US control over oil exports, China had been the primary destination for Venezuelan crude. Caracas had likewise been the main supplier of oil to Cuba in the last two decades.
Venezuelan and US authorities have offered no clarity on the return of export proceeds to the South American country, with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio stating that Caracas needs to submit a “budget request” before accessing its funds. The Venezuelan Central Bank’s handling of US-disbursed resources will be subjected to outside auditing, with Pentagon and CIA contractor Deloitte reportedly among the companies hired.
Despite the absence of official data on Venezuelan export revenues and the portion being returned to the country, the Rodríguez administration’s injection of foreign currency into exchange tables run by public and private banks increased in April and May. US authorities reportedly mandated that PDVSA revenues be funneled directly to private sector importers via forex auctions as opposed to having the Venezuelan Central Bank run foreign currency assignments.
Edited by Lucas Koerner in Caracas.
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