Batista Brothers Clinch Venezuela Oil Stake as Deals Gain Steam
Brazil’s billionaire Batista brothers have acquired a stake in an oil production project in Venezuela, the latest deal to emerge in a country that the
Brazil’s billionaire Batista brothers have acquired a stake in an oil production project in Venezuela, the latest deal to emerge in a country that the Trump administration is vowing to reinvigorate after years of sanctions. Fluxus Oil, Gas & Energy, owned by Joesley and Wesley Batista, acquired A&B Oil and Gas in recent months, according to people familiar with the transaction. A&B owns a 49% stake in the Petrolera Roraima joint venture with Venezuela’s national oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA, said the people, who weren’t authorized to discuss the information. The terms weren’t disclosed. The oil deal is the third to surface over the past week and others are expected to follow ahead of a July 28 regulatory deadline, some of the people said.
Lionheart Capital, Pacific Coast Energy Co. and Fluxus are among a flurry of wildcatters that are seizing on Venezuela’s US-steered reopening and the easing of sanctions under acting President Delcy Rodríguez, who is supported by the Trump administration. The Batistas have spent years diversifying their family meatpacking business from pulp and power to finance, and have cultivated important political connections. Joesley Batista has met with President Donald Trump and tried to persuade former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to leave power before he was captured by US forces in January. Pilgrim’s Pride Corp., a US subsidiary of the Batistas’ meat giant JBS NV, was the biggest donor to Trump’s inaugural committee. Petrolera Roraima, or Petrororaima, is located in Venezuela’s vast Orinoco Heavy Oil Belt and was historically operated by ConocoPhillips before the government expropriated the Houston-based company’s local assets in 2007.
With Fluxus in control of operations, the partners plan to boost crude production from Petrororaima to 120,000 barrels a day in five years, up from just a quarter of that now, the people said, asking not to be identified because they were not authorized to speak publicly. Fluxus views the operation as compliant with licenses issued by the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, the people added. PDVSA didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment on Petrororaima. The Batista family remains interested in acquiring additional oil and mining assets in Venezuela, the people said. That strategy hasn’t changed following last month’s devastating earthquakes on the central coast, they said. The Batistas’ links to Venezuela date back more than a decade.
The BriefWire