Italy's Eni will run a giant oil field in Venezuela
Eni, Italy's state-controlled energy company, will run a giant oil field in Venezuela for the next 25 years.
On 2 September in Caracas, Eni signed a contract with PDVSA, Venezuela's state oil company, to become the sole operator of Junín-5, in the Orinoco Belt. The field holds an estimated 35 billion barrels of oil in the ground and pumps about 12,000 barrels a day today.
Acting president Delcy Rodríguez and US Energy Secretary Chris Wright attended the signing. Eni has not published a value for the contract. Il Sole 24 Ore and Bloomberg report a target of about 400,000 barrels a day by the end of the decade.
The deal follows two changes in Venezuela this year. On 3 January US forces captured Nicolás Maduro in Caracas. On 29 January a new hydrocarbons law ended PDVSA's monopoly. US companies, Chevron among them, have signed their own deals.
Venezuela has also been paying Eni back in oil. In 2022 the US let Eni and Spain's Repsol ship Venezuelan crude to Europe against unpaid debts, on condition it was not resold elsewhere. Washington withdrew that permission in 2025. According to Reuters, Venezuela still owes Eni about $2.7 billion.
Eni has worked in Venezuela since 1998. Its offshore Perla gas field, owned 50-50 with Repsol, covers about 35% of the country's gas use.
Italy itself imports about three quarters of its energy (Eurostat, 2024). In 2025 its crude came from 31 countries, led by Libya (24%), Azerbaijan (16.6%) and Kazakhstan (13.1%). Its gas came mostly from Algeria and as liquefied gas by ship, about a third each. Russia supplied about 40% of Italy's gas imports in 2021. In 2025 it was around 1%.
Next: the man who built Eni.
The voice in this video is AI-generated. Script and fact-checking by The Italy Desk.
Eni (2/9/2026 and 2015), Reuters, Bloomberg, Il Sole 24 Ore, AP, S&P Global, OPEC, Eurostat, UNEM annual report 2026, ECCO.
