Madrid: Spanish energy giant Repsol will look for "mechanisms" to continue working in Venezuela, its CEO said Monday after Caracas said the United States had revoked the licences of several transnational oil and gas companies to operate there.
"We are in direct contact with the American authorities and we are going to see if we can find mechanisms that will allow us to continue our activity in this country, which has never been easy," Repsol chief executive Josu Jon Imaz told a business conference in Madrid.
The bulk of Repsol's production in Venezuela, around 85 percent, is of natural gas which sustains the electrical system in western Venezuela, and only "a small" part of its output in the country is oil, he added.
"We also have a responsibility insofar as, as I said before, a significant part of the electrical system also depends on our production," Imaz said.
Repsol produces around 65,000 barrels of crude oil per day (bpd) in Venezuela, a former Spanish colony, according to experts.
Referring to the US ban, Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares said Madrid was "analysing together with the company exactly what this measure is about".
"We are going to analyse exactly what impact it has, what we are talking about. We are going to use all the space we have for dialogue," he told a separate news conference.
Caracas said Sunday that the United States has revoked several transnational oil and gas companies' licenses to operate in Venezuela, which had been granted despite Washington's sanctions against the South American country.
US President Donald Trump is seeking to strangle Venezuela economically in order to cripple its leader Nicolas Maduro, and announced a week ago 25-percent tariffs on imports from countries buying Venezuelan oil and gas.
