CARACAS — ExxonMobil said on Monday that it has signed a memorandum of understanding with Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA to explore potential upstream opportunities, the company’s first formal step back into the country since its assets were expropriated nearly two decades ago.
The agreement is non-binding and commits Exxon to no specific project. Before the company could take part in exploration or production, it would need a final joint-venture or production-sharing contract. Exxon did not say which projects or oil areas it is evaluating.
“This memorandum is a meaningful first step, but any future investment would require stable policies, clear regulations, strong investment protections and competitive returns,” the company said.
Acting President Delcy Rodríguez welcomed Exxon and said she hoped the memorandum would lead to concrete agreements.
Long Road Back
Exxon left Venezuela in 2007 when the government of then-President Hugo Chávez seized its assets. It had held a 41.67% stake in the Cerro Negro heavy crude project, now known as Petromonagas, and a 50% interest in the La Ceiba project.
In 2014 the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes awarded Exxon $1.6 billion plus interest. Venezuela has challenged the award, and the dispute remains unresolved.
The relationship reopened only after the U.S. operation in January that captured Nicolás Maduro and left Rodríguez as acting president.
At a White House meeting that month, Exxon CEO Darren Woods called Venezuela “uninvestable” without durable investment protections, a remark that drew criticism from President Donald Trump.
Exxon said in March it would send a technical team to study opportunities, and Caracas has since changed its hydrocarbons law to allow broader private participation, according to industry reports.
In May, the New York Times reported that Exxon was in advanced talks on contracts covering as many as six Venezuelan fields, with a deal possible within weeks. Trump said in late August that “we have Exxon going in,” while Exxon declined to comment.
The memorandum signed Monday is a much more limited step than the field-level contracts described then.
Several questions will shape whether the memorandum becomes a real return. The ICSID award is still contested, and a final contract would need terms that satisfy Exxon’s stated conditions on policy stability and investor protection.
Venezuela’s government has not said what areas or terms it would offer. Chevron and other firms are also pursuing agreements in the country, according to earlier reports, and Washington has made U.S. energy companies a central part of its approach to Venezuela.
For President Trump, an Exxon return would be a political win, since his administration has pushed to remake Venezuela’s energy sector with American companies at the forefront. For Exxon, the move is a notable reversal for a company that spent years as a legal adversary of Caracas.
