BP Secures Licence for Second Phase of Venezuela’s Loran Gasfield

BP has secured a licence to develop the second phase of Venezuela’s offshore Loran gasfield with Qatari and Emirati partners, making the project one of the first large-scale foreign energy investments in the country this year.

The London-listed company will work with a Qatari business owned by the Al-Khayyat brothers and the overseas investment arm of the United Arab Emirates’ national oil company. Shell obtained a licence for the field’s first phase earlier in the summer, while Venezuela has also held talks with Italy’s Eni about possible oil projects.

BP chief executive Meg O’Neill called the licence an important step in cooperation with Caracas. The award follows an agreement nearly four months earlier under which BP and the Venezuelan government began exploring potential gas development.

Venezuela holds exceptionally large oil reserves, but years of underinvestment and operational decline reduced production from more than 3.5 million barrels a day in the late 1990s to about 1 million. The Guardian reported that output has since risen to roughly 1.2 million barrels a day and exports to US refineries have reached their highest level since 2019.

The Loran development expands the return of major international energy companies to Venezuela’s petroleum sector. BP did not provide a construction timetable, investment total or production target in the source record.