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Two of Europe’s largest energy companies are struggling to recover payments worth about $6bn from Venezuela and are facing indifference from US officials about the debt, according to two people familiar with the situation.
For several years, Italy’s Eni and Spain’s Repsol have supplied Venezuela with large quantities of gas and naphtha, which is used to dilute the country’s heavy oil so it can be more easily transported.
The two companies jointly own the Perla gasfield off the Venezuelan coast, which underpins Repsol’s claim to provide roughly a third of the gas used for the country’s electricity generation.
Until last March, they had been receiving Venezuelan crude from the authorities as payment for the gas. But as it dialled up the pressure on Caracas, Washington said it would cut off those payments by revoking a special permit to operate for all foreign companies before exempting US oil major Chevron from the rule.
The move exposed energy groups to sanctions if they continued to take payments.
Repsol and Eni have since continued to supply Venezuelan gas to the domestic market while receiving no payments in cash or crude but accumulating IOUs. Despite heavy lobbying, no solution has emerged.
One person familiar with the situation said the administration’s “America First” policy was having an impact on European companies, which have sensed a lack of urgency from the White House in resolving their payment problems.
Kevin Book, analyst at ClearView Energy Partners, noted that President Donald Trump’s first administration introduced carve-outs in 2019 for certain US companies operating in Venezuela. “This isn’t a new strategy . . . The president uses the phrase ‘American First’, one shouldn’t ignore it,” he said.
Josu Jon Imaz, Repsol’s chief executive, had said his group was in talks over resolving the block on payments in kind before President Nicolás Maduro was ousted by the US on Saturday.
“We maintain . . . a constructive and fully transparent dialogue with the US administration at the moment,” he said on an earnings call in October.
Analysts have suggested that both Eni and Repsol, among other European players, might be interested in investing in Venezuela’s energy sector in the future, but the companies declined to comment on the prospect or on the debt they are owed.
The $6bn also includes some historic debts for naphtha supplied by Eni and Repsol to Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA in 2023.
Repsol owns several assets in Venezuela, which was its second-largest market in production volume after the US in 2024, tied with Trinidad and Tobago. It produced 24mn barrels of oil equivalent, 85 per cent of which was gas.
With 256mn barrels of proven oil equivalent on Repsol’s books in Venezuela, the country accounts for 15 per cent of the company’s total proven reserves.
The US Treasury, which issues special licences enabling companies to operate in Venezuela, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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