The Wall Street Journal writes that Chevron needs to solve a number of technical problems, covering the infrastructure restore. However, despite the easing of U.S. sanctions, the oil from Venezuela will come to the market in small quantities in the near future.
Earlier in November, Chevron received an easing of sanctions and a permission from the U.S. administration to produce oil and petroleum products in Venezuela with the right to supply them to the United States.
Chevron is facing a number of problems. It needs to repair equipment, deal with power supply interruptions and pipeline problems, hire hundreds of workers and manage safety issues.
Oil analyst José Chalhoub in the comments to the article expressed his opinion that recovering the lost production in Venezuela requires a huge amount of investments. The expert estimates the amount of investment at 50 billion dollars.
According to analysts, the four facilities of Chevron together with PDVSA may take a year to restore production to the level of 200 thousand barrels per day.