On November 26th, the Unitary Platform and the Maduro regime announced the resumption of talks in Mexico City; a humanitarian agreement focused on education, health, food security, flood response, and electricity programs that will benefit the Venezuelan people; and agreement on the continuation of talks focused on the 2024 elections. Following this announcement and consistent with U.S. government policy, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued Venezuela General License (GL) 41, authorizing Chevron Corporation to resume limited natural resource extraction operations in Venezuela. This action reflects longstanding U.S. policy to provide targeted sanctions relief based on concrete steps that alleviate the suffering of the Venezuelan people and support the restoration of democracy.
This authorization prevents PdVSA from receiving profits from the oil sales by Chevron. GL 41 authorizes activity related to Chevron’s joint ventures in Venezuela only, and does not authorize other activity with PdVSA. Other Venezuela-related sanctions and restrictions imposed by the United States remain in place; the United States will vigorously enforce these sanctions and will continue to hold accountable any actor that engages in corruption, violates U.S. laws, or abuses human rights in Venezuela.
GL 41 authorizes transactions ordinarily incident and necessary to certain activities related to the operation and management by Chevron Corporation or its subsidiaries of its joint ventures involving blocked Venezuelan state-owned oil company Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PdVSA) or any entity in which PdVSA owns, directly or indirectly, a 50 percent or greater interest.
The announcements by the Unitary Platform and the Maduro regime are important steps in the right direction to restore democracy in the country. The United States welcomes and supports the reopening of negotiations between the Unitary Platform and the Maduro regime, as part of our longstanding policy to support the peaceful restoration of democracy, free and fair elections, and respect for the rights and freedoms of Venezuelans.
Concurrent with the issuance of Venezuela GL 41, OFAC also issued public guidance indicating that U.S. persons are authorized to provide goods and services for certain activities as specified in GL 41 and that non-U.S. persons generally do not risk U.S. sanctions exposure for facilitating transactions that are authorized by GL 41. In light of Venezuela GL 41, OFAC also extended Venezuela GL 8K and removed Chevron from that license.
