Eni and Repsol Watch Venezuela Debts Swell After License Revocations

Two of Europe's oil majors are learning what it costs to be paid in barrels once the barrels stop coming. In half-year filings, Eni disclosed that Venezuela owed it roughly $2.3 billion as of June, and Repsol pegged its own receivable at about 586 million euros, or close to $684 million. Both figures moved the wrong way over the past year, and both trace to the same event: in March, the Trump administration revoked the U.S. licenses that had allowed the companies to recover what PDVSA owed them by taking Venezuelan crude cargoes instead of cash.

Cut off that channel and the math is simple. The debt was being worked down oil shipment by oil shipment. Take away the shipments and the balance sits there, growing as new gas gets delivered and no offset arrives.

How the oil-for-debt machine worked

The arrangement was never elegant, but it functioned. Eni and Repsol produce gas from the Perla field offshore Venezuela through Cardon IV, a 50-50 venture between the two companies. It is the country's only active offshore gas project, and its output feeds Venezuela's power grid. PDVSA buys that gas under a dollar-denominated contract. The problem, for years, has been that Venezuela does not have the dollars.

So the state oil company paid the way it pays most of its foreign creditors: in crude. The U.S. Treasury signed off on specific licenses letting Eni and Repsol lift PDVSA cargoes and count them against the money owed for gas and against accumulated dividends. It was a workaround built on a sanctions carve-out, and it kept a live production asset from becoming a stranded one. Each tanker that loaded at a Venezuelan port chipped away at the balance.

What March changed

In March, Washington revoked those authorizations. The move was part of a broader tightening on foreign partners lifting Venezuelan oil, and it hit Eni and Repsol directly. Repsol was told its license to keep operating under the old terms was gone. The recovery mechanism that had been retiring the debt simply switched off.

The numbers in the mid-year disclosures show the effect. Eni's $2.3 billion as of June is higher than where the figure stood in 2024. Repsol's 586 million euros reflects the same dynamic on a smaller base. Neither company was writing the balances down anymore because the tool for writing them down had been taken away. Gas still flows to Venezuela's grid. The compensation does not flow back.

Why the companies stayed at the table

The obvious question is why either firm keeps supplying gas it may not get paid for. The answer is that walking away is expensive too. Perla is a real, producing asset, and Cardon IV represents years of capital. Abandoning it would mean writing off the investment outright and handing over the field with the receivable unpaid. Continuing to produce at least keeps the claim alive and the relationship intact for whenever the licensing picture shifts again.

There is also precedent for the terms getting reworked rather than terminated. The swap deals between these companies and PDVSA have been paused, renegotiated, and restarted more than once since the original OFAC approvals in 2022. Shipments stopped, then resumed, then thinned out to a trickle. The players know the arrangement bends. What they cannot control is when Treasury decides to let crude move again.

The lever sits in Washington

That is the uncomfortable part for Eni and Repsol. The size of the debt is a Venezuela problem, but the ability to collect it is a U.S. policy decision. As long as the licenses stay revoked, the receivables keep sitting on the balance sheet with no clear path down. The companies can lobby, they can wait, and they can keep the gas flowing to preserve the claim, but they cannot pay themselves.

Reporting through the year indicated that Eni, Repsol, and other operators exposed to Venezuela were pressing U.S. authorities to restore some form of authorization to export Venezuelan crude and resume the debt recovery. Nothing about that is guaranteed. Sanctions relief on Venezuela has a habit of arriving in narrow, conditional slices and getting yanked back when the political calculus changes.

What the figures actually say

Strip away the geopolitics and the disclosures tell a plain story about credit risk in a sanctioned market. Selling gas to a counterparty that cannot pay in cash is only sustainable if there is a legal channel to be paid in something else. When that channel closes, a working commercial arrangement turns into a growing receivable that a company has limited ability to enforce.

Eni's balance is the one to watch. At $2.3 billion in June and reported to be climbing, it is large enough to matter and structured so that only a change in Washington can move it. Repsol's 586 million euros is smaller but stuck the same way. Both companies are now essentially long a Venezuela credit they cannot collect, holding a producing asset they will not abandon, waiting on a license decision they do not make.

For a beat that has spent years watching PDVSA's obligations pile up against foreign partners, the Eni and Repsol numbers are a clean example of the pattern. The gas is real. The debt is real. The barrels that used to settle it are not moving. Until they move again, the tab keeps growing, and the two European majors keep counting it.