STOCK MARKET NEWS: Oil stabilizes as Biden seeks help from Venezuela, jobless claims on tap
The Biden administration is reportedly gearing up to wind down sanctions against Venezuela’s authoritarian regime, clearing the way for Chevron to resume its oil operations and reopen U.S. and European markets.
People familiar with the proposal told The Wall Street Journal that any sanctions relief wound hinge on talks between the government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and the country’s opposition regarding free and fair presidential elections in 2024. So far, such talks have failed to materialize.
Discussions of possible sanctions relief on Venezuela come as President Biden faces mounting political pressure to address rising gas prices ahead of the November midterms. It also comes as the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC+) said it would be cutting oil production by 2 million barrels a day, creating another headache for the president.
Such a deal between the U.S. and Venezuela could potentially enrage critics on all sides. Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido has asked the U.S. government for details of Chevron’s expanded license request to operate in the country.
Still, it remains to be seen whether a pivot to Venezuela would make alleviate growing fuel costs in the U.S. Once a major oil producer, pumping more than 3.2 million barrels a day in the 1990s, Venezuela’s dilapidated oil industry has been plagued by years of corruption, mismanagement, and environmental degradation, according to reports by oilprice.com.
“The Democrats right now have a harder story to sell on this because sure there’s inflation. Sure, there are supply chain issues. But when specifically it comes to oil, they have been so publicly, anti-American oil, that when you start to hear that there’s not enough of it, those two dots aren’t very hard to connect,” Ryan Sitton, a former Texas oil regulator, told FOX Business. “So, Biden is clearly trying to do anything he can do to hold oil prices down, and thereby help keep gasoline prices low, such that it doesn’t hit them that hard in the midterms.”
Read more on the story here: Biden admin looks to scale down Venezuela sanctions, allow more pumping of oil rated among world’s dirtiest
