By Matthew Dalton
President Trump's plan to rebuild Venezuela's decrepit oil-and-gas industry is likely to rely on two of Europe's largest energy companies. There is just one problem: The companies are owed more than $6 billion by the Venezuelan government.
Italy's Eni and Spain's Repsol are hoping the ouster of strongman Nicolás Maduro has opened a window to repay the debt. The companies have been working the corridors of power in Washington seeking sanctions relief that would allow Venezuela's state energy company to pay up.
Last week, the companies asked the Trump administration for licenses to export Venezuelan crude oil, which would be used to pay for their gas, a person familiar with the matter said. It is unclear when the administration might respond, the person said.
Eni and Repsol have been pumping gas for years from a major deposit offshore and supplying it to PdVSA, Venezuela's state energy company. That fuel accounts for around 40% of Venezuela's gas supplies. But the companies haven't been paid since March, when the Trump administration refused to renew licenses for the companies that provided a limited waiver from U.S. sanctions on Venezuela.
Since then, Eni and Repsol have been stuck as the unpaid bill grew to $3 billion for each company. They don't want to shut off the gas because of the devastating impact that would have on the Venezuelan economy, say people familiar with the situation. But there was little prospect of convincing the administration to allow licenses to export oil while Maduro was still in power.
The debt is particularly important for Repsol, the smaller of the two companies, with a market capitalization of only around $20 billion.
Eni and Repsol are among the few Western companies that have recent experience operating in Venezuela. Their CEOs were the odd pair of foreign executives at a White House summit of oil-and-gas companies earlier this month, where Trump sought to buck up the industry for major investments in Venezuelan oil production.
"We have people, we have facilities, we have technical capabilities and I take your point, Mr. President, we are ready to invest more in Venezuela," said Repsol Chief Executive Josu Jon Imaz, adding that the company would be able to triple its oil production in Venezuela in the next few years.
The executives didn't raise the sanctions that have stopped the companies from being paid. Before March, Repsol and Eni had licenses that allowed them to be compensated by receiving shipments of crude from PdVSA, the Venezuelan state energy company, rather than cash. The administration shut down that mechanism, and then gave only one company, California-based Chevron, an exemption to export Venezuelan crude.
Eni and Repsol decided to keep producing gas, taking the long view that the asset was worth keeping, people familiar with the matter said. The companies also recognized that the Venezuelan economy could be plunged into deeper turmoil if the gas didn't keep flowing.
"That is essential to avoid any kind of social problem," Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi said at the White House meeting.
The companies produced oil in Venezuela for years. In 2015, they started up the Perla gas field, an offshore deposit that is one of the largest in South America. Repsol continues to produce 45,000 barrels of oil a day in the country.
Other major oil-and-gas companies have been wary of getting into Venezuela, given the political instability and enormous investments that would be required following years of corruption and underinvestment in the sector. At the White House meeting, Exxon Mobil CEO Darren Woods said that the country was currently "uninvestable" but that the Trump administration could turn the situation around.
Shell CEO Wael Sawan said the company has a few billion dollars of investment opportunities in the country. But the main one, said a person familiar with the matter, is in gas not oil: the Dragon field, which sits in Venezuelan waters. The gas would be piped to a Shell LNG facility in neighboring Trinidad and Tobago.
Executives from BP and TotalEnergies didn't attend the meeting. TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanné said that the challenges of producing Venezuela's heavy oil are considerable.
"It requires a lot of (capital expenditure) investments. You have to manage the emissions as well," Pouyanné said. "It will take time."
A BP spokeswoman declined to comment.
Venezuela's oil fields are heavily emitting in part because they contain large quantities of gas that must be burned off, or flared, because the facilities don't exist to bring it to market. Venezuela flares more gas from its oil fields than any other country for each barrel of oil produced, according to the World Bank. Flaring operations often coincide with large releases of methane, a gas with 80 times the global-warming potential of carbon dioxide.
Write to Matthew Dalton at Matthew.Dalton@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 23, 2026 10:00 ET (15:00 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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