Eni has restarted operations at Venezuela’s Junín-5 supergiant heavy oil field in the Orinoco Belt, less than two months after signing a new 25-year production contract with the Venezuelan government, targeting plateau production of 200,000 barrels per day by 2028 from a field holding an estimated 35 billion barrels of certified oil in place.
The Italian major announced the start of field activities on 28 October 2026, describing the Junín-5 restart as a cornerstone of its strategy to expand upstream operations in Venezuela under the country’s new contractual framework. Eni is now the sole operator of Junín-5, with full responsibility for technical, financial and commercial management of the field, replacing the previous mixed company structure under which PDVSA held 60 percent and Eni held 40 percent in the Petrojunín joint venture.
The new contract, described as a Contrato de Participación Productiva de Hidrocarburos, was signed on 2 September 2026 in Caracas in the presence of acting President Delcy Rodriguez and Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi, during a visit to Venezuela by US Energy Secretary Chris Wright. The contract was enabled by Venezuela’s new Organic Hydrocarbons Law, approved in January 2026 following the US capture of Nicolas Maduro, which created a revised commercial framework designed to attract international investment into the country’s vast but largely underexploited resource base.
The development plan for Phase 1 centres on restoring abandoned wells and launching an intensive new drilling campaign, using existing infrastructure to minimise development costs and accelerate the production ramp. Eni said support from Venezuela’s Ministry of Hydrocarbons and PDVSA had enabled an unusually fast progression from contract signing to field activity start. The company expects significant production growth in the first operating phase, with the 200,000 barrels per day target set for 2028.
Eni reported attributable hydrocarbon production from Venezuela of 64,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2025, primarily from the Perla offshore gas field operated through the Cardón IV joint venture with Repsol. The Junín-5 restart will substantially change that picture if Phase 1 executes to plan, adding onshore heavy oil volumes from the Orinoco Belt alongside the existing offshore gas position.
Venezuela’s Orinoco Belt holds the world’s largest certified heavy oil reserves, estimated at around 300 billion barrels across the belt as a whole. Junín-5 sits within that resource with its 35 billion barrel in-place estimate, making it one of the largest individual blocks in the belt. The field’s development had been stalled for years under the previous political environment, leaving vast reserves stranded while Venezuela’s national production declined from peaks above 3 million barrels per day in the late 1990s to below 700,000 barrels per day at the low point of the Maduro era.
Beyond Junín-5 and the Cardón IV gas position, Eni also holds a 26 percent stake in PetroSucre, which operates the Corocoro offshore oil field, and a stake in Supermetanol, a petrochemical company producing methanol. The Italian company has been present in Venezuela since 1998 and has maintained operational continuity throughout the political and sanctions environment of the past decade.
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