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Venezuela has spent years as the geopolitical equivalent of a closed door. This week, the US decided to knock, loudly, by sending Energy Secretary Chris Wright directly to Miraflores Palace in Caracas.
Wright arrived in Venezuela on February 11, making him the highest-ranking Trump administration official to engage with the country since Nicolás Maduro’s removal from power. The visit, which ran through February 12, marks one of the most consequential diplomatic moves in US-Venezuela relations in over a decade.
What happened at Miraflores
Wright met with interim President Delcy Rodríguez at the same presidential palace that long served as Maduro’s seat of power.
The centerpiece of the discussions was energy cooperation, specifically the future of Venezuela’s oil sector and how the US intends to help revive it. Wright toured Chevron-PDVSA joint venture facilities in the Orinoco Oil Belt, the region that contains the bulk of Venezuela’s proven reserves.
As a direct output of those talks, Chevron announced plans to invest more than $100 million in upgrades to the Petropiar plant, a facility within the Orinoco Belt joint venture.
Wright framed the broader mission in terms of “commerce, peace, prosperity,” with the US seeking a dramatic increase in Venezuelan oil output, using sanctions relief as a carrot to get there.
Why Venezuela matters right now
Venezuela holds the world’s largest proven oil reserves. At the time of Wright’s visit, Venezuelan oil production sat at approximately 1 million barrels per day, hampered by years of mismanagement under Maduro, US and European sanctions, and the collapse of technical expertise as engineers and workers fled the country.
The political landscape shifted sharply on January 3, 2026, when Maduro was captured, an event that triggered a rapid rearrangement of Venezuelan governance. Rodríguez, who had served as vice president, moved into an interim presidential role and on January 29 signed an oil privatization reform law, which laid the legal groundwork for exactly the kind of foreign investment Wright came to discuss.
The US approach, as Wright outlined it, operates in three phases: stabilization, recovery, and transition, with sanctions relief tied explicitly to democratic governance milestones.
The energy math and what comes next
The Petropiar upgrades are a starting point, not a finish line. PDVSA, the national oil company, has been a shell of its former operational self due to years of underinvestment.
For Chevron specifically, this visit validates a strategy of staying present in Venezuela through the sanctions years, maintaining its joint venture positions while rivals pulled back entirely. The $100 million Petropiar commitment signals to the broader industry that the investment environment may be opening up.
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