25-year GeoPark deal signals renewed foreign interest in Venezuela’s Orinoco oil belt
Colombian oil company GeoPark has signed a 25-year contract with Venezuela to operate the Bare block in the Orinoco Belt, in an event attended by senior Venezuelan official Delcy Rodríguez, signaling Caracas’s push to bring outside investment back into its core oil region.
Venezuela has moved to lock in a long-term partnership with foreign capital in its heavy oil heartland, signing a 25-year contract with Colombian energy company GeoPark to operate the Bare block in the Orinoco Belt. The agreement was signed on Friday and was attended by Delcy Rodríguez, identified as Venezuela’s acting president.
The deal gives GeoPark a central role in one of Venezuela’s major crude-producing areas for a full quarter-century. Jaime Gilinski, director of the Gilinski Group and GeoPark’s largest shareholder, was present at the event and expressed appreciation for Rodríguez’s attendance, underscoring the high-level political support behind the contract.
For Venezuela, the move indicates an effort to draw regional private capital back into an oil industry that has faced years of decline. Inviting a Colombian firm into the Orinoco Belt signals that Caracas is willing to work with neighboring companies, not just long-standing partners from outside the region.
For GeoPark, the agreement offers access to one of the world’s largest heavy oil zones but also ties its fortunes to Venezuela’s political and economic trajectory over the next 25 years. The length of the contract assumes that both sides can manage shifts in policy, domestic conditions, and international pressure over a long period.
The broader implications will depend on how quickly work begins at the Bare block, whether other foreign firms follow with similar deals, and how governments that maintain sanctions on parts of Venezuela’s oil sector react in practice to this new partnership. Those responses will help determine if the GeoPark agreement remains a one-off arrangement or marks the start of a wider reopening of Venezuela’s oil industry to outside investors.
Sources
- OSINT