(Bloomberg) – The U.S. government is preparing to issue a general license allowing companies to pump oil in Venezuela, part of the Trump administration’s plan to ease sanctions and rebuild the nation’s moribund energy industry.
The new license could be issued by the Treasury Department as soon as this week, according to people familiar with the measure who asked not to be identified because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly. The Treasury Department and the White House didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
The move is a key step to attract companies with U.S. ties to step in and revitalize output in Venezuela, which holds among the world’s largest reserves, following a U.S. military operation in Caracas that captured former President Nicolás Maduro.
Last week, the U.S. issued a separate general license allowing companies to buy and sell Venezuelan oil. That license covers a range of downstream operations, including loading oil onto tankers as well as exporting, transporting and refining that crude — when carried out by “an established U.S. entity.”
Earlier, the administration gave individual approvals to trading houses Trafigura Group and Vitol Group to restart Venezuela’s oil sales after a partial U.S. naval blockade stymied exports and filled the country’s storage tanks.
As that bottleneck eases, Venezuela’s heavy sour oil is returning to the global market. The focus is shifting to U.S. refiners rather than Chinese buyers, which for years absorbed most of the supply at steep discounts because of U.S. sanctions. Historically, the U.S. was the top destination for Venezuelan oil.
After U.S. forces captured Maduro on Jan. 3, the Trump administration backed his former vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, and said it would try to stabilize the country’s economy by taking control of its dilapidated oil industry.
A central element of that strategy requires companies with connections to the U.S. that are operating in Venezuela to deposit payments into a U.S.-controlled account in Qatar. The Trump administration is releasing the funds to Venezuela’s Central Bank, which later auctions the dollars to private local operators.
See also: Venezuela faces investor, political pushback over oil sector reform plan
Companies with no foothold in Venezuela remain wary of political risks, including the durability of the present government, the people said.
Separately, the U.S. has reopened Venezuelan airspace to commercial flights. Inside Venezuela, the Rodríguez government has improved fiscal terms for oil companies and is releasing political prisoners.
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