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One of the biggest new bets on Venezuela’s oil industry is coming from right next door.
Colombian oil and gas producer GeoPark plans to invest approximately US$7 billion in Venezuela’s massive Bare oilfield, with the goal of dramatically increasing production over the next decade.
The company plans to increase production at Bare from roughly 11,000 barrels of oil per day today to around 90,000 barrels per day by 2038.
For GeoPark, which already operates across Latin America, the deal represents its first entry into Venezuela.
Earlier this month, GeoPark and Colombia’s Grupo Gilinski signed a 25-year production-sharing agreement with Venezuela to develop the Bare field alongside state-owned oil company PDVSA.
Bare is located in Venezuela’s enormous Orinoco Oil Belt and contains an estimated 15.7 billion barrels of original oil in place.
The project isn’t starting from scratch either.
Approximately 1,100 existing wells could eventually be reactivated, while GeoPark says around 80 new horizontal wells could also be drilled as development progresses. Operations are expected to begin in December.
The field once produced more than 100,000 barrels per day, meaning much of the infrastructure and drilling footprint already exists.
Venezuela possesses some of the world’s largest proven oil reserves, but years of underinvestment, sanctions, infrastructure problems and political instability have severely limited production.
That is beginning to attract companies willing to make an early bet on a potential recovery.
GeoPark itself describes Bare as a potentially transformational investment and says the project, combined with its operations in Argentina’s Vaca Muerta, could help increase the company’s overall production to 75,000–85,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day by 2030 — roughly 2.7 times its current level.
There are still substantial risks. Venezuela’s oil industry continues to face aging infrastructure, unreliable electricity and broader political and financial uncertainty. GeoPark, however, says its investment case does not depend on Venezuela’s political environment normalizing.
That’s what makes this deal particularly interesting.
Rather than another American or European oil giant entering Venezuela, one of the country’s biggest new investments is being driven by a company based in Colombia.
A US$7-billion commitment over the life of the project is a major vote of confidence that Venezuela’s enormous oil industry can eventually regain some of the production it has lost.
And if GeoPark can take Bare from 11,000 barrels per day to anywhere near 90,000, that bet could pay off in a very big way.
Colombia isn’t just watching Venezuela’s oil comeback — it’s investing billions in it. 🇨🇴🤝🇻🇪
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