BP volta à Venezuela (e vai sair do Mar do Norte)

British oil giant BP has announced agreements with Venezuela's new government to explore and produce oil, marking the company's return to the country following the US ousting of President Nicolás Maduro in January. During CEO Meg O'Neill's visit to Caracas, BP revealed it had obtained a license for an offshore gas block, an announcement that drew attention due to the company's simultaneous decision to put its North Sea operations up for sale.

Just a few weeks earlier, Shell had been the first major international company to return to Venezuelan operations. Alongside BP, under the leadership of Delcy Rodríguez, the ex-vice of Maduro who gained support from Trump, the country is also receiving XRG, a state-controlled company of Abu Dhabi's ADNOC, with international director Cristiano Pinto da Costa from Shell Brazil, and UCC Oil, a private company from Qatar.

Together, the three entities plan to develop the second phase of the Loran field, with recoverable reserves estimated at over 600 million barrels. BP also signed a memorandum to evaluate exploration of the offshore Carúpano East block. The CEO described the agreements as "a big step forward." In the UK, the opposition to the British government was not pleased with the news.

The Conservative Party member of parliament Andrew Bowie, who serves as the shadow minister for Energy (representing the opposition that oversees the actual minister), told The Telegraph that BP's move was "disappointing, though unsurprising." Criticizing the recent renewal by the Labour government of an additional tax on extraordinary profits of oil companies, Bowie stated that "it is not surprising that BP is looking for other places worldwide to expand its business" because the current administration is "completely against its core business."

Richard Tice, the spokesman for energy matters for Nigel Farage's Reform UK, called it a "tragedy" that the company "needs to strike deals with authoritarian dictatorships instead of in the North Sea." Recently, BP revealed that extending the additional tax, introduced after energy prices surged due to the war in Ukraine in 2022, represented an additional cost of $539 million for its North Sea operations last year and $97 million so far this year.

The announcement of its intent to sell North Sea assets led The Telegraph to write that BP now sees Venezuela as a better investment opportunity than the UK. The move in Venezuela, where BP operated for a long time before Chávez's nationalization of the oil sector, comes amid the company's review of its strategy. BP recently approved a plan to refocus its oil and gas assets after a (yet another) failed attempt to reduce its carbon footprint and expand investments in transition-related businesses.