{
  "id": 19726826,
  "title": "Venezuela Ends 19-Year Power Monopoly, With Oil Fields First in Line",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/11/12/venezuela-ends-19-year-power-monopoly-with-oil-fields-first-in-line",
  "topic": "finance",
  "section": "Finance & Markets",
  "published": "2026-11-12T23:00:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "OilPrice",
    "slug": "oilprice",
    "url": "https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Venezuela-Ends-19-Year-Power-Monopoly-With-Oil-Fields-First-in-Line.html"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Venezuela has lifted its 19-year monopoly on electricity generation, allowing private companies to enter the sector for the first time. The reform, passed unanimously by the National Assembly last week, primarily benefits oil producers and large businesses with the ability to afford euro-pegged tariffs. Oil producers can now build power plants for their own fields without state authorization, provided they remain off the national grid. Larger private generators need a concession from the Ministry of Electric Energy for any plant above 50 megawatts.\n\nThe new law permits private and mixed-ownership companies to generate, transmit, distribute, and sell power through joint ventures lasting up to 25 years. A new superintendency will oversee tariffs, service, and self-generation, but the specific terms have not been published.\n\nExperts estimate that the state grid generates around 12,000 megawatts, while demand reached 16,400 megawatts in September. Households unable to pay the full price receive a subsidized rate on the state grid, which powers most households despite daily blackouts.\n\nThe country's oil exports have been struggling due to aging terminals, crude-quality issues, and grid failures, with exports hovering near 1.25 million barrels per day (bpd). Private company Repsol, which holds 40% of the Petroquimico joint venture with PDVSA on Lake Maracaibo, has been seeking its own power plants and supplies since May.\n\nThe US-backed oil expansion in Venezuela will require power independent of the grid. North American Blue Energy Partners, a privately held company, has received a 100-year concession over 17 fields in the Lake Maracaibo region and the Orinoco Belt, containing about 65 billion barrels of proven reserves. Chevron, operating in Venezuela, plans to invest over $7 billion by 2031 to increase production from 1.1 million to 1.2 million bpd.\n\nThe new law also allows private companies to repair the grid, with the government promising 7,400 megawatts through agreements with General Electric and Impsa, and 600 megawatts from unit 6 of the Planta Centro power station in partnership with China. However, the cost of stabilizing the grid is estimated at $15 billion over three years.",
  "summary": "Venezuela is opening up its electricity sector to private capital for the first time since Hugo Chávez nationalized it in 2007, in a reform passed this week primarily to benefit oil producers and large businesses that can afford euro-pegged tariffs, while the state keeps the hydroelectric dams and main transmission lines that supply most households living with daily blackouts. The law, which the…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}