Oil & economy

Five series to track oil and Venezuela's economy with data from OPEC, the EIA and the IMF. Each chart has its data table and its source. The full story of the collapse is in the explainer.

Since January, Venezuela's oil business has run under new rules: a new law in Caracas and a chain of licenses in Washington. Sanctions were not lifted: PDVSA (the state oil company) remains blocked, and the sanctions executive orders from 2015 to 2019 remain in OFAC's program ^[17]. OFAC now authorizes, with conditions, what used to be prohibited.

1. January 3 and 5

   Maduro's capture and an interim government

   U.S. forces capture Nicolás Maduro on January 3; on the 5th, Delcy Rodríguez is sworn in as interim president ^[16].

2. January 9

   Executive Order 14373 on oil revenue

   The U.S. president signs the order “Safeguarding Venezuelan Oil Revenue.” Later licenses require that oil tax or royalty payments to the Venezuelan state or to PDVSA be deposited in the “Foreign Government Deposit Funds” or in the account the U.S. Treasury designates ^[17][23].

3. January 29

   Hydrocarbons Law overhaul and first license to trade crude

   The Asamblea Nacional (National Assembly) unanimously approves the overhaul, which according to Reuters lowers taxes and gives private operators autonomy ^[18]. According to AP, it caps royalties at 30% and promises private companies control of production and sales, ending PDVSA's monopoly and its control of prices ^[19]. The same day, OFAC issues General License 46, which authorizes established U.S. companies to trade Venezuelan crude ^[20].

4. February 3

   Diluents

   General License 47 authorizes the sale to Venezuela of U.S.-origin diluents, which are needed to move the extra-heavy crude of the Faja (Orinoco Belt) ^[21].

5. March 18

   License to deal with PDVSA

   General License 52 authorizes certain transactions with PDVSA ^[22]. In its 52C version (September 14), the authorization for established U.S. companies covers new investment contracts and joint ventures, but excludes PDVSA's bonds and debt and changes to the ownership or management of CITGO ^[24].

6. August 27

   Updated licenses for six oil companies

   General License 50C authorizes the Venezuela operations of BP, Chevron, Eni, Maurel & Prom, Repsol and Shell. It requires arbitration in the U.S., the United Kingdom, France or Singapore and excludes transactions with persons in Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba or China ^[23].

7. August 28

   Deal announced by Trump

   Donald Trump says the U.S. secured “majority control” of more than 65,000 million barrels of reserves through an alliance with private companies; he gave no details. Rodríguez spoke of 17 strategic fields and 209,000 million dollars in fiscal revenue. Reuters reports analysts' doubts about its legal basis ^[25].

What the numbers show

According to OPEC's secondary sources, production fell to 823,000 barrels a day in January and rose every month to 1,145,000 in August ^[3][4]. The EIA shows a similar path: 830,000 in January and 1,160,000 in May ^[6]. Production is still far from the 2,356,000 of 2013 ^[5].

The oil fields in the deal announced in August are in the Faja del Orinoco (Orinoco Belt) and Lago de Maracaibo, far from Cabudare and Barquisimeto ^[25]. But oil reaches every home in Lara another way: it is nearly all of the country's dollar income, and the public coffers pay the bonuses that top up wages. These are the national figures that weigh most on daily life. We found no recent official data for Lara alone.

• Prices

  According to the Banco Central (central bank), prices rose 8.9% in August 2026 alone and 534.21% from August 2025 ^[9].

  Put simply: what cost 100 bolívars a year ago cost about 634 on average in August.Our calculation

  The IMF projects average inflation of 387.4% for all of 2026 ^[10].

• Wages, bonuses and pensions

  The minimum wage is still 130 bolívars a month, with no raise since March 2022 ^[11]. At the official rate of October 21, 2026 (883.40 Bs per dollar) ^[7], that is $0.15.Our calculation

  On April 30 the government announced a “comprehensive minimum income” of $240 a month and pensions of $70, without specifying how much is wage and how much is bonus ^[11]. Bonuses do not count toward severance benefits ^[12].

• Why crude hits the wallet

  In 2024, oil was 87% of the value of everything Venezuela exported ^[13]: nearly nine of every ten dollars the country earned selling abroad.Our calculation

  According to economic firms cited by Reuters, paying the bonuses cost about $400 million in April, compared with about 250 million in December, while the oil deals with the U.S. bring hundreds of millions of dollars into the public coffers ^[11].

• Gasoline

  We found no verifiable official figure for the price of gasoline in 2026, so we do not publish one.

  The last scheme documented by Reuters, from June 2020, allowed buying up to 120 liters a month at a subsidized price and charged 50 U.S. cents per liter beyond that ^[26]. We have not been able to confirm whether it is still in effect.

For a baseline: in 2025, 68.5% of the country's households were in income poverty, according to UCAB's ENCOVI survey ^[27].

Production: two OPEC measures

Every month, OPEC publishes two figures per country. The “direct communication” figure is the one the government itself reports; the “secondary sources” figure gathers outside estimates that the organization uses as its benchmark. In 2026, Venezuela's official figure is higher than the secondary one every month: in August, 1,201,000 versus 1,145,000 barrels a day ^[3]. We publish both, labeled. We take each month from the most recent edition of the report, because OPEC revises its figures: the 2025 average went from 936,000 barrels a day in the February 2026 edition to 941,000 in the August edition ^[4][5].

Production: EIA

The U.S. Energy Information Administration measures crude plus condensate, in thousand barrels a day, and publishes with a lag of about four months: its latest figure is for May 2026. For 2013 and 2014 it repeats a flat estimate of 2,500 ^[6].

Exports

Values in current dollars from OPEC's Annual Statistical Bulletin. Each year comes from the most recent edition that publishes it, because editions correct one another: 2016 appears as 25,142 million in the 2017 edition and as 25,942 in the 2020 edition ^[14][15]. The sources also clash: for 2018 OPEC gives 34,657 million in oil exports ^[14], while the BCV reported 29,800 million, according to AFP ^[28].

Inflation

The IMF publishes annual rates (year average and end of period) with projections; those for 2026 are from the April 2026 World Economic Outlook ^[10]. The BCV publishes a monthly index; the year-on-year change for August (534.21%) was calculated by Reuters from those figures ^[9]. They are different measures and are not mixed in the same chart.

Gaps in BCV data

For years there were no official statistics: in May 2019, AFP reported that the central bank had stopped publishing figures three years earlier, without explanation ^[28]. CEPAL (ECLAC) warned in 2017 that there had been no official national accounts or balance of payments since 2015 ^[29]. That is why we use the IMF for GDP.

Wages in dollars

This is our calculation: 130 bolívars divided by the BCV's official rate on the day of the review ^[7][11]. We do not use parallel-market quotes because they have no verifiable official source.

What we do not publish

The price of gasoline in 2026 and any Lara-specific figure: we found no official or wire-service source to back them. If a figure could not be verified, it does not appear.