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Getting Venezuela’s oil flowing again is a numbers problem, and Alejandro Betancourt López has put a hard target on it: from about 200,000 barrels a day to 1 million within five years.
The Target
Betancourt’s company, North American Blue Energy Partners, holds the operational lead across 17 Venezuelan oil fields under the late-August deal. To grow into that role, NABEP means to borrow as much as $5 billion and roughly quintuple its output to 1 million barrels a day within five years (https://www.sanjuandailystar.com/post/trump-s-venezuelan-oil-deal-relies-on-a-powerful-and-divisive-partner). Hit that number, and a single private company would run near what Venezuela’s entire industry manages today.
The 17 developed fields are only the first phase. Eight greenfield blocks sit behind them, part of a wider program aiming at an initial 1.5 million barrels a day (https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/8/30/venezuela-says-it-retains-sovereignty-following-us-oil-deal). Those are the figures the whole arrangement is measured against.
The Work Between Here and There
None of it’s quick. Venezuela’s crude is heavy and slow to refine, the wells have been run down through years of underinvestment, and the trained crews who scattered during the collapse have to be hired back. The $5 billion is pointed at that repair bill, and the pace of the work will decide how fast output actually climbs. Venezuela’s whole industry took years to fall, and rebuilding it won’t be faster.
The stakes reach past NABEP. Venezuela keeps ownership of the fields and takes about $19 a barrel, revenue it projects could reach $209 billion over the contract, so a rising barrel count feeds straight into the state’s budget. When the wells lift more, the treasury collects more.
The plan is ambitious, and plenty could slow it: financing, prices, the sheer condition of the fields. What Betancourt brings is a company already producing and a record of raising output before. The target is 1 million barrels a day, and the operator chasing it is Alejandro Betancourt López.
The target carries weight beyond NABEP. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other officials have looked favorably on Betancourt’s record of raising output, and hitting a million barrels a day would anchor the American independents drilling nearby, giving them an operator with real scale beside them. Plenty could slow the climb, from financing to the sheer condition of the fields. The direction, though, is set, and the company chasing the number is already producing.
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