(Bloomberg) — The Biden administration secretly permitted Chevron Corp. to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to the Venezuelan government despite a license that explicitly prohibited such disbursements, according to people familiar with the matter.
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The supplement to a November 2022 sanctions waiver allowed Chevron to remain in compliance with US law while paying the regime of President Nicolás Maduro taxes and oil royalties, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing non-public information. The initial waiver from the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control granted Chevron permission to conduct limited operations in the Latin American nation.
The administration of President Donald Trump ended the arrangement and is requiring the Texas oil giant to wind down Venezuelan operations.
“Chevron conducts its business globally in compliance with all laws and regulations, including any sanctions frameworks provided for by the U.S. government,” the company said in a statement.
The US Treasury Department, which oversees sanction waivers, declined to comment.
The sanctions waiver known as a general license allowed Chevron to pump and export Venezuelan crude but expressly forbade the company from paying taxes, royalties or dividends to the Venezuelan government or any state-controlled entities.
However, an undisclosed supplement to the waiver permitted Chevron to make certain payments essential to business operations, some of the people said.
Last year, Chevron filed documents with Venezuelan authorities showing about $300 million in accrued taxes in the nation, according to documents reviewed by Bloomberg News. At the time, US Representative Maria Elvira Salazar, a Florida Republican, condemned the arrangement and advocated withdrawing Chevron’s waiver.
Chevron is the only major US oil company still operating in Venezuela after a wave of nationalizations by Maduro’s predecessor, the late Hugo Chavez in the 2000s. Those seizures prompted some other operators to quit the nation and sue for compensation.
Chevron’s operations in Venezuela were effectively put on hold by sanctions during the first Trump administration. But that changed in 2022 when Biden officials struck a deal that encouraged Maduro to hold democratic elections in return for allowing Chevron to go back to work.
