Gas imported from Venezuela will help to ease the energy crisis

REPSOL and Italian energy company Eni could begin importing Venezuelan gas and gas condensates by June.

The news was announced by Pedro Tellechea, president of state-run Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), who confirmed that both companies had been seeking to increase the volume of their operations inside the Latin American country.

The agreement  increases Europe’s supply options in the context of the energy crisis created by the Ukraine war, while bringing much-needed investments and royalties to Venezuela’s beleaguered economy.

The deal will  allow Repsol and Eni to concentrate on their Perla gas field, a joint project located in the Cardon IV block in the Gulf of Venezuela.  Regarded as having “enormous potential”, the offshore operation has increased activities in recent months, up 30 per cent on 2019.

The agreement also required authorisation from the US State Department as its oil-for-debt arrangement was halted two years ago when Washington stepped up sanctions against Venezuela.

Washington hopes that this will encourage Nicolas Maduro’s government – regarded as practically a dictatorship – to allow more political freedom inside the country.

“Economic projects like these benefit both Europe and Venezuela,” said EU’s High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell.

“Venezuela is at present burning gas that it cannot use, although its gas is not subject to sanctions, only oil,” he told an El Pais interviewer last month.

“It is one of the countries that produces the most methane but this is benefitting nobody, while in the EU we need gas,” Borrell said.