I wish thackney was still around to refute my statements about the oil industry with his superior knowledge, but here goes the speculation.
Chevron still has assets in Venezuela, but I doubt they’ve put much new money into them lately. The oil industry requires a lot of continuing investment to maintain “state of the art” in its infrastructure. The chaotic state of government and society in Venezuela made it a very bad business climate. Also, Venezuela crude is very heavy and hard for refineries to digest. Only a few refineries can handle Venezuelan crude and they are in Houston. The Houston refineries don’t really need the Venezuelan crude as they are still at capacity with Permian, Bakken and Athabascan crude.
So my guess is that Chevron has been de facto winding down its Venezuelan operations just by not putting any money into them. And the oil isn’t going anywhere; a return of stability to Venezuela a generation from now, and Chevron will be back to take up where they left off.
Agreed, thackney was one of the best.