In this week’s edition of Let’s Talk Energy, Radhika Bansal, Senior Vice President of Analysis, and Rob Cordray, Managing Director, Americas, at Rystad Energy join Noah to talk about how far Venezuela’s oil and gas recovery can go as operators, service companies, and investors re-engage. Production is already climbing past 1.2 million barrels per day, but the real story is fixing what’s already there. Stream the full episode now: Venezuela’s oil and gas recovery: How far can it go?

NB: Where is Venezuela's oil production today, and where is the recent growth actually coming from? 

Radhika Bansal: "We can start by saying that Venezuela is currently producing slightly more than 1.2 million barrels per day of crude oil, and the trend for 2026 has broadly been trending upwards, but I think what's more important to understand is like where has this ramp up really come from, and it's mostly been a very brownfield-led story, and by brownfield we mean  production coming in from existing assets. So it's very much something which is coming from existing fields through reactivation of wells, debottlenecking, workovers, artificial lift, etc. So it's very much been a brownfield-led recovery, but over the longer term, what would become critical is building out the greenfield developments in the Orinoco Belt, primarily, which is where the large resource base is sitting." 

NB: If the first incremental barrels aren't coming from new drilling, where are they actually coming from? 

Rob Cordray: "Frankly, the first barrels come from fixing what is already there. I mean, I think we tend, in the global upstream analysis world, to jump immediately to rigs and new wells, but the real production response is what Radhika is talking about. It's more likely from workovers, pump replacements, gas lift, flow line repairs, compression, stabilizing power and those sort of things. In the heavy oil areas, diluent and blending capacity are just as important as the reservoir. Modest investment in lift, fluid handling, gathering infrastructure will unlock production a whole lot faster than any sort of brand new greenfield. So I would actually call the first phase an industrial maintenance and rehabilitation campaign.” 

NB: Is 1.5 million barrels per day a conservative or an ambitious target for Venezuela, and on what timeline? 

RC: "You could get to 1.5 [million bpd] in the next couple of years, or maybe about 2030. As Radhika mentioned, conservative does not mean automatic. The country still needs to mobilize capital, equipment, people at a pace that it hasn't demonstrated for years, or frankly, decades. So let's say 1.5 million is a reasonable floor for a functioning recovery, and maybe 1.8 is a successful execution case. But beyond that, any sort of rapid move back towards historical levels would require a much more profound reconstruction of the entire industry, frankly." 

NB: The conventional fields in eastern Venezuela don't get the same attention as the Orinoco Belt, where do they fit into this recovery story? 

RC: "The tendency is to sort of overlook not only Maracaibo, but also the conventional fields in the east- the Oriente. But I think it's because they don't really have the headline scale of the Faja. But if the question is where you can put money to work, demonstrate a production response, and recover that investment relatively quickly, these fields I think are very important. Subsurface is known. Crude's easier to market, doesn't require the diluent and upgrading systems as we have in heavy oil. I would also be a little careful about calling maybe eastern Venezuela easy. Some of these fields are deep, high pressure, technically demanding, but really as a portfolio, these fields can provide probably some of the fastest barrels and the clearest evidence, not only internally but externally, that the reopening model was working." 

NB: What role could the Perla gas project play in addressing Venezuela's domestic gas shortage? 

RB: "Perla is extremely important in terms of gas for Venezuela because it's just such a large source of non-associated gas, which is already producing at scale. So Perla is currently producing around 580 million cubic feet per day of gas, and that's already one of the largest gas assets for the country. In the near term, like Rob mentioned, the gas being developed is primarily supporting the domestic power industry and the gas balances. But I think over time, Perla has the potential of being that platform where offshore gas can be scaled and potentially creating options for export. As of now, Perla is like a good anchor for domestic supply, and as a proof that large offshore gas can be commercially produced by international operators like Eni and Repsol." 

NB: What protections do investors need in place before committing billions of dollars to Venezuela? 

RB: "I can maybe categorize it into three broad points. Operational control, stability of fiscal and commercial terms, and then confidence in being able to monetize the production and cash genuinely being collected. So a company may tolerate some kind of uncertainty over short cycle brownfield workover projects, but then when you're looking at something where the capital at risk is relatively large, like these multi-billion-dollar investments, which would be needed to further sanction and develop these projects in the Orinoco Belt, it's an altogether different kind of confidence that one needs to put in that kind of money. There has to be clarity around fiscal terms. There has to be payment mechanisms in place. There has to be proper infrastructure in place, and then surety that the agreements that one is getting into are there for the long haul." 

Stream the full episode now: Venezuela’s oil and gas recovery: How far can it go? With Radhika Bansal and Rob Cordray