Caracas – October 31, 2026 -- North American Blue Energy Partners (NABEP) will raise its in-country Venezuelan fleet to 41 of the 60 rigs it announced earlier this month, as production reached 223,509 barrels of oil equivalent per day on October 19, up from about 200,000 in August.

NABEP stages nine drilling rigs in Venezuela and ships four more

Three of the nine drilling rigs are active in the Junín 10 block of the Orinoco Belt, and three more will start there soon. The remaining three are being refurbished or moved into position. Four additional rigs are being shipped from Houston, Brazil and Colombia. The rigs will open new production from NABEP's heavy oil reserves and include H&P and NOV models from U.S. manufacturers.

Workover fleet of 20 rigs is set to grow to 35 after Category 4 recertification

NABEP operates 20 workover rigs to repair existing wells and return idle or underperforming wells to production. Three are in Lake Maracaibo, 12 in the Lagunillas and Bachaquero fields, and five in the Orinoco Belt.

Another 15 are being refurbished in Houston for deployment in western Venezuela. All 35 are being recertified to Category 4, the most thorough level of rig inspection, before entering service.

Oil revenue funds the rig buildout, CEO says

The update follows the October addition of 11 workover rigs rated at 550 horsepower and two drilling rigs rated at 1,500 horsepower. CEO Alejandro Betancourt said, "We are paying for every one of these rigs with the oil we produce," and described the approach as the reinvestment strategy behind a tenfold production increase in two years.

NABEP has scaled output from approximately 18,000 barrels per day to more than 200,000 in two years through roughly $1 billion in company-funded investment. Hundreds of millions of dollars more are being reinvested every month.

U.S. agreement delivers first million barrels to Corpus Christi on Oct. 27

The new equipment follows an August 2026 agreement between NABEP and the U.S. Departments of State and War to significantly expand Venezuelan oil production. The first million barrels under that agreement arrived in Corpus Christi, Texas, on Oct. 27.

NABEP employs 5,000 people and supports 10,000 contract employees in Venezuela. It controls the rights to commercialize more than 65 billion barrels of P1 oil reserves and plans to invest nearly $100 billion in production capacity and oil-and-gas infrastructure. Its near-term goal is production above 1 million barrels of oil per day, with expansion under way in Lake Maracaibo and the Orinoco Belt.