The Diplomat
The executive vice president of Venezuela, Delcy Rodríguez, has met in the last few hours in Caracas with the director of the Repsol business unit in that country, Luis Antonio García Sánchez, to discuss “alliances with companies” and to advance in the plans for “energy cooperation”.
The meeting takes place in the midst of a diplomatic crisis with Spain, after the regime of Nicolás Maduro called its ambassador in Madrid for consultations and summoned the Spanish ambassador in Caracas, to protest the “insolent, interventionist and rude” statements of the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, who called the current Venezuelan Government a “dictatorship”.
Furthermore, the meeting took place while the Venezuelan Assembly, controlled by Chavismo, is considering asking Maduro to break all kinds of relations with Spain, including economic and commercial relations, which would lead to the suspension of activities of Spanish companies operating in Venezuela, as proposed by the president of the legislative chamber, Jorge Rodríguez, brother of the vice president. However, yesterday Delcy Rodríguez said, according to the state channel Venezolana de Televisión (VTV), that her country “continues to advance in its energy cooperation plans and in alliances with companies that, like Repsol, trust and invest in the world’s largest oil reserve.”
Delcy Rodríguez, who is also Minister of Petroleum, admitted that the collaboration with the Spanish energy company has allowed the expansion of the production of medium and light crude oil in various oil projects in the country.
According to VTV, the “synergies” between Venezuela and Repsol reinforce the country’s commitment to consolidate its position as “leader in the global energy market, to promote development and economic stability through strategic alliances and international cooperation.”
Repsol is the Spanish multinational with the greatest activity in Venezuela, with oil and gas extractions, and that, through Cardón IV, it exploits, together with Italy’s ENI, the largest natural gas field in Latin America, located in the Gulf of Venezuela. The company, present in the country since 1993, resumed oil exports from Venezuela after the lifting of sanctions against Maduro, which has allowed it to collect part of the large outstanding debt, which at the end of the year had gone from 411 million euros to 259.
Insistence of the PP
Meanwhile, the PP, through its general secretary, Cuca Gamarra, insisted yesterday on demanding that Pedro Sánchez’s government show “loud and clear” that Venezuela “has a dictatorship”, as the Minister of Defence maintains.
In an appearance before the press in Logroño, when asked about whether economic relations between Spain and Venezuela could be harmed by the position of the PP, which promotes the recognition of Edmundo González as the winner in the elections of July 28 in the Ibero-American country, Gamarra replied that no one has to regret asking for democracy and defending it “in their country and in the rest of the countries of the world”.
