Two Tables, One Country

Five weeks of record: the oil agreement, the Caracas dialogue, and what each has produced

GEOPOLITICAL CROSSFIRE — PART X

October 3, 2026

Two drilling rigs left Houston for the Orinoco. Twenty prisoners left their cells. One candidate was turned back seven times. No party has named an election date.

Five weeks ago the United States and the interim government of Venezuela announced an oil agreement covering seventeen fields and sixty-five billion barrels. Since then the agreement has acquired a company, a chief executive, a Pentagon equity option, a shipping schedule and a set of congressional inquiries. In the same period the Caracas dialogue completed its second cycle, produced a Supreme Court renewal procedure, unblocked eighteen websites, was followed by twenty prisoner releases, and scheduled a third cycle for mid-October. No electoral calendar has been published.

This article sets out the record of those five weeks. Two processes are running: an economic one, between Washington, Houston and Caracas, and a political one, inside Caracas under United States auspices. Each is described below by its participants, its outputs and its dates. Where a statement is quoted, it is quoted as made and attributed to the person who made it. The article offers no verdict; the facts are laid out so the reader can form one.

BACKGROUND: HOW THE TWO TABLES CAME TO EXIST

The following is settled record, included because the events of September cannot be read without it.

• January 3, 2026. United States forces captured Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores at Fort Tiuna, Caracas, in an operation the Pentagon named Absolute Resolve. Both were flown to New York and arraigned on January 5 on narco-terrorism charges; both pleaded not guilty. The same day, Venezuela’s Supreme Tribunal of Justice ordered Vice President Delcy Rodríguez to assume the interim presidency. She was sworn in on January 5 by her brother, National Assembly president Jorge Rodríguez.
• January 12. The United States stated in court that it recognizes Delcy Rodríguez as Venezuela’s sole head of state.
• January 8 to early March. Foro Penal recorded 670 releases of political prisoners.
• February 2026. Cuban security personnel and medical staff began leaving Venezuela, including personnel removed from posts in the military counterintelligence directorate (DGCIM), according to Reuters reporting of February 21.
• February 19. Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, who has been under United States indictment since 2020 and carries a $25 million reward, met officials of United States Southern Command in Caracas to discuss security. The record reviewed for this article does not establish his position after that date. His ministry controls the national police and the prison system.
• March 5 and March 30. The United States and Venezuela agreed to re-establish diplomatic relations; the United States embassy in Caracas reopened on March 30 after seven years.
• August 1. The Caracas dialogue between the government and opposition parties opened under United States auspices.
• August 28. The oil agreement was announced.

The questions the record has not answered, as of October 3: whether the Venezuelan state’s security apparatus has changed hands or only its orders; whether the opposition can agree on a single interlocutor; and when a vote will be held.

I. FIVE WEEKS IN ONE TABLE

Eighteen entries: six on the oil track, four in the dialogue, five from the opposition outside the dialogue, three in court.

II. THE OIL TABLE: WHAT IS NOW ON THE RECORD

No text of any agreement has been published by either government. What follows comes from reporting and congressional correspondence.

The vehicle. North American Blue Energy Partners is led by Alejandro Betancourt López, 46, a Venezuelan businessman formerly a principal shareholder of Derwick Associates, which won power-plant contracts under Hugo Chávez. Reuters reporting cited by Voz notes he was investigated in the United States, Spain and Switzerland over alleged laundering of funds diverted from PDVSA, was never charged, and denies the allegations. NABEP holds operating rights to the seventeen fields for a term reported at one hundred years, has stated a planned investment of $100 billion and a production target above one million barrels per day, and was awarded the concession without a competitive bidding process. Current output attributed to the fields is in the range of 200,000 barrels per day; the company’s stated target is 500,000 by late 2028.

The government’s position in it. According to the Senate Democrats’ letter of October 1, the Department of War would acquire a 35 percent equity stake in NABEP’s parent company through warrants reported at nominal cost, and the State Department would hold the right to purchase 20 percent of production at cost, with a right of first refusal on the remaining 80 percent. Both departments confirm the partnership exists. Neither has published the instrument or stated its legal basis publicly.

The equipment. NABEP has staged sixty drilling rigs, thirty steam boilers and seventy heavy units. Two rigs were loaded in Houston aboard the BBC Washington for a six-day passage to Venezuela.

The industry. The Wall Street Journal reported on September 26 that executives at Chevron, ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips had privately expressed frustration at competing against a company with direct United States government ties, a situation that “came as a surprise to the industry” and “could undermine the historically competitive nature of the oil industry.” The three companies hold the longest operating record in the Venezuelan heavy-oil belt and the largest unpaid arbitration awards against the Venezuelan state.

The reserve. On August 30 the President stated that Venezuelan oil would be used to refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. He attached no timeline. The SPR holds roughly 400 million barrels against a 714 million capacity. At the State Department’s 20 percent share of 500,000 barrels per day, the gap would close in about eight and a half years; at today’s 200,000 barrels per day, about seventeen. The senators’ sixth question asks for the analysis behind the statement.

The congressional record, by claim

On the record: the Democratic senators have asked for a legal basis and the administration has not yet published one. Salazar, Cruz, Scott and Díaz-Balart support the oil agreement and ask that an election date be attached to it. The midterm election is November 3.

III. THE DIALOGUE TABLE: WHAT IT HAS PRODUCED

The Caracas negotiation opened on August 1 under United States auspices. Its second cycle closed on September 25. The government delegation is led by Jorge Rodríguez, president of the National Assembly and brother of the interim president. The opposition delegation is led by former deputy Dinorah Figuera and was built around Primero Justicia and Voluntad Popular, the two parties that chose to enter. Infobae reports that Vente Venezuela’s organization secretary, Henry Alviárez, is now among the opposition negotiators; El Pitazo, writing days earlier, described the table as limited to the two parties and reported that Acción Democrática publicly denounced its exclusion. The difference may reflect Vente’s entry between the second cycle and the reporting, or a difference between formal membership and presence.

Output of two cycles

The third cycle’s agenda, as reported: an end to the judicial interventions that altered the internal governance of opposition parties; the lifting of political disqualifications, Machado’s among them; and an electoral calendar pointing to presidential elections in 2027.

The release figures: 670 between January 8 and early March; 20 after the second cycle; 324 remaining, of whom 140 are military.

IV. NEW YORK: THE MEETING AND THE SPEECH

On September 23 the President met Delcy Rodríguez on the sidelines of the General Assembly. US officials described the agenda as debt restructuring, economic stabilization and political transition. Rubio: “It was a short meeting, but it was an important meeting. Ultimately, what we want to see in Venezuela is a stable democracy with a functional economy.”

On September 24 Rodríguez addressed the Assembly. Her lines: “Today, Venezuela is being reborn.” “Rebuilding our national soul will be the priority.” “I do not promise you an easy way forward.” On elections: “Elections will be held in Venezuela,” with the timing left to the Venezuelan people to determine as “the best time,” and a commitment to “a process based on equal conditions for all” through “political dialogue with opposition sectors.” She thanked the President “for being willing to resume relations.” She did not mention Nicolás Maduro. On the same day Foro Penal’s count of political prisoners stood at 344, before the twenty releases that followed the dialogue cycle.

Outside the building, protesters carried signs reading “No Vote, No Oil” and “New Face, Same Regime.”

On September 29 Rubio, asked by Sean Hannity about the timetable, said: “We’re working very hard with the 2015 National Assembly to put in place the conditions necessary to have free and fair elections as soon as possible,” and “They need to have free and fair elections in that country.” In August he had said the transition would take “not years, but certainly months and weeks.” The 2015 National Assembly is the opposition-majority legislature elected that year; it is not, as a body, a party to the Caracas dialogue.

In the same interview Rubio described Cuba as “a failed state in every sense of the word,” said its leaders would learn “the hard way if they don’t correct,” and that they would no longer be able to “steal money and make money off the backs of the Cuban people.” Separately he said that “Cuba’s already fallen.” Cuban security personnel began leaving Venezuela in February.

V. THE EXILE, THE STREET AND THE RETURN

Machado remains in Panama. Her team confirms seven blocked attempts to reach Venezuela since June: a flight from Virginia to Curaçao on June 26 whose pilot was ordered to turn back; a Copa Airlines flight from Panama to Caracas on June 28 where boarding was denied after the airline was warned by Venezuelan authorities that carrying her could jeopardize its permits; and, on September 21-22, three attempts in under twenty-four hours: a small vessel cancelled for “mechanical problems,” a charter to Aruba refused landing authorization, and a charter to Curaçao that never left the ground. No arrest warrant against her has been published. The blocks have operated through third-country authorities and private carriers.

On September 27 Vente Venezuela held rallies in Caracas, Valencia, Maracaibo and Mérida demanding her safe return and an electoral calendar. Attendance was in the hundreds in each city. Foro Penal has recorded 19,251 political detentions since 2014. The same day Claudia Macero, Vente’s communications chief, returned from exile through Maiquetía, calling it “a very difficult process” and saying “I come here to work.”

Machado’s public positions in the period, quoted as made. On the oil deal, September 3: “the true scope of this agreement is still unknown”; the sector requires “colossal investments” but “in a country with the conditions and institutional fragility of Venezuela, no sector will be able to function in isolation”; “there is no possible development without solid institutions and without a government elected by popular vote”; “the patrimony of our soil does not belong to an illegitimate regime.” She continues to describe the United States as Venezuela’s principal partner. She has not criticized the President by name. She declined to join the August 1 negotiation, citing the opposition’s lack of input in its design.

VI. THE ALLIANCE: WHO IS IN IT

On September 14 a coalition called Alianza por Venezuela (AVE) was launched in Caracas. It demands a clear electoral timeline, presidential elections with guarantees, the restoration of intervened parties, the lifting of disqualifications, the release of prisoners and respect for sovereignty, and it has proposed María Corina Machado as its presidential candidate once elections are called and her disqualification lifted. Its spokesman is Noel Álvarez, former president of Fedecámaras, the national business federation. Edmundo González endorsed it: “uniting for a cause does not require thinking alike or erasing differences.”

Membership as reported by Efecto Cocuyo and El Pitazo, with each component’s lineage as the public record describes it:

Three facts about Machado’s relationship to this body are established. First, Vente Venezuela is not a member of AVE; Henry Alviárez attended the launch, which Efecto Cocuyo reads as signaling a “strategic alliance,” while formal membership is “unclear.” Second, AVE did not emerge from Vente; it emerged from the fragmentation of the Unitary Platform (PUD) after Primero Justicia and Voluntad Popular entered the dialogue without Machado and Acción Democrática denounced its exclusion. Third, AVE has said it will not register as a party or electoral coalition, and that each member will decide its electoral support independently. Its spokesman says it will monitor the dialogue and “not be an obstacle” to it.

The question being asked in Caracas, Florida and Texas is whether the coalition proposing Machado includes the hard left and chavistas. What the record shows: three organizations identified as left-wing, one of them (Bandera Roja) with a Marxist-Leninist founding and an armed past, and one organization led by a former PSUV deputy who sat in Maduro’s party until 2017. What the record does not show: any sitting chavista official, any current PSUV or Gran Polo Patriótico party, any figure from the Maduro or Rodríguez governments, or any statement by Machado or Vente accepting the alliance’s membership as her own. Bandera Roja has been in the anti-Chávez opposition for more than two decades and sat alongside Primero Justicia and Voluntad Popular in the MUD; Contreras’s break with Maduro predates the 2018 election. Machado has not publicly defined her relationship to AVE.

Precedents the series has cited. Spain legalized the Communist Party in April 1977, ahead of the pact that produced the 1978 constitution. Poland’s 1989 Round Table seated the governing party alongside Solidarity. Chile’s Concertación placed socialists and Christian democrats on one ticket from 1990. Venezuela’s own 1958 Pacto de Punto Fijo, after the fall of Pérez Jiménez, excluded the Communist Party; the guerrilla insurgency of the 1960s, from which Bandera Roja later emerged, followed. These are the historical cases; the reader can weigh them.

VII. THE COURTROOM

On September 2 Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores moved to dismiss the indictment in the Southern District of New York on head-of-state immunity grounds. Prosecutors’ response was due October 2. Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein has scheduled a hearing on the motion for November 17. Flores has a detention hearing on October 8 seeking house arrest. Trial is set for June 1, 2027. On October 2 the longtime lead prosecutor, Assistant United States Attorney Jason Richman, left the case.

The legal question before the court: whether a person the United States declined to recognize as president can claim head-of-state immunity. The United States has recognized Delcy Rodríguez as head of state since January 12.

VIII. THE PLAYERS: WHERE EACH STANDS ON THE RECORD

IX. THE CALENDAR

Dates on the record as of October 3, 2026:

• October 8. Detention hearing for Cilia Flores, SDNY.
• Mid-October. Third cycle of the Caracas dialogue; agenda: political guarantees, disqualifications, electoral calendar.
• Late 2026, as reported. Arrival of the first NABEP rigs; first production figures attributable to the company.
• November 3. United States midterm election.
• November 17. Hearing on the Maduro-Flores immunity motion.
• Mid-2027. The date named in Senator Cruz’s resolution for Venezuelan elections.
• June 1, 2027. Trial date, United States v. Maduro.
• Late 2028. NABEP’s stated target of 500,000 barrels per day.

Not on any calendar: a Venezuelan election date; appointments to the renewed Supreme Court; release of the 324 remaining prisoners; publication of the oil agreement or its legal basis.

X. WHAT THE RECORD SHOWS AS OF OCTOBER 3

On the economic track: an agreement exists, a company has been named, equipment is in motion, Congress has asked questions, and the governing documents have not been published.

On the political track: a dialogue exists, two cycles have produced a court procedure, eighteen unblocked websites and twenty releases, a third cycle is scheduled, and no election date has been set.

On the opposition: its leading figure is in Panama and has been proposed as a candidate by a coalition she has not claimed; two of its parties sit at the table she did not join; one party has been excluded; the 2015 Assembly that Washington names as its counterpart is not at the table.

On the security apparatus: the Cuban advisers have been leaving since February; the Interior Ministry’s current leadership is not established in the public record reviewed here; 140 of the remaining 324 political prisoners are military.

On the country: 324 political prisoners, more than 11,000 people under restrictive measures, a diaspora of roughly eight million, and a calendar that so far contains court dates, a congressional election abroad and a dialogue cycle, but no vote.

The next cycle in Caracas is the first occasion on which an election date is on the agenda of a room where the answer binds. Part XI of this series will record what was said there.

SOURCES

• Shaheen, Reed, Warren, Heinrich letter to Secretaries Rubio, Hegseth and Wright, Senate Foreign Relations Committee (Democrats), October 1, 2026
• Quartz, “Senate Democrats challenge Pentagon’s Venezuela oil deal,” October 1, 2026
• Daily Caller, “Top Senate Democrats Challenge Legality Of Pentagon’s Planned Venezuela Oil Stake,” October 2, 2026
• Voz, “Democrats in Congress want documentation from the oil deal with Venezuela,” October 2, 2026
• Fox News, “Dems demanding Venezuela brief face State Department fury as senators leave town before meeting,” October 2026
• Voz, “NABEP, controversial Venezuelan businessman Alejandro Betancourt’s company, raises concerns among Chevron and other oil producers,” September 26, 2026 (citing WSJ and Reuters)
• Fox Business, “Who is Alejandro Betancourt? CEO behind Trump’s Venezuela oil deal,” September 2026
• NPR, “Days after Trump announces Venezuela oil deal, White House fills in some of the details,” September 1, 2026
• Al Jazeera, “Trump says US will refill its petroleum reserves using Venezuelan oil,” August 30, 2026
• Latin Times, “Republicans Push Back on Trump’s Venezuela Strategy: Salazar Questions Oil Deal as Ted Cruz Demands Elections,” August 31, 2026
• Israel Hayom, “Delcy Rodriguez meets Trump as Venezuela seeks global return,” September 24, 2026
• Al Jazeera, “Venezuela’s Delcy Rodriguez promises elections at UN, gives no date,” September 24, 2026
• The Spokesman-Review (AP), “Rubio threatens Cuba, calls for elections in Venezuela ‘as soon as possible’,” September 29, 2026
• Newsweek, “Marco Rubio Gives Update on Venezuela Election Timing,” August 4, 2026
• The Hill, “Rubio says Cuba has ‘already fallen’: ‘It is a failed state’,” September 29, 2026
• CNN en Español / EFE, “Chavismo y oposición acuerdan en segundo ciclo de diálogo que se amplíe el desbloqueo de sitios web,” September 25, 2026
• Infobae, “Diálogo en Venezuela: chavismo y oposición se preparan para negociar garantías políticas,” September 29, 2026
• Moncloa, “Diálogo Venezuela presos políticos: las excarcelaciones que reabren la puja por el petróleo,” September 27, 2026
• El Nacional, “Foro Penal contabiliza 324 presos políticos en Venezuela tras las recientes excarcelaciones,” September 29, 2026
• Infobae, “El Foro Penal confirmó 20 nuevas excarcelaciones de presos políticos tras el segundo ciclo de diálogos,” September 28, 2026
• Foro Penal, “670 presos políticos excarcelados en Venezuela desde enero 2026,” March 2026
• Efecto Cocuyo, “Alianza por Venezuela: plataforma pro Machado que surge frente a división de la PUD,” September 2026
• El Pitazo, “Una nueva alianza en la oposición: qué impacto tiene en la mesa de diálogo,” September 2026
• El Pitazo, “Ocho organizaciones se unen en la Alianza por Venezuela para exigir cronograma electoral,” September 14, 2026
• Swissinfo / EFE, “Una nueva coalición de Venezuela exige elecciones, con María Corina Machado como candidata,” September 14, 2026
• 14ymedio, “Alianza por Venezuela exige cronograma electoral,” September 2026
• El Pitazo, “María Corina le replicó al acuerdo petrolero de Trump,” September 3, 2026
• Latin Times, “María Corina Machado Trapped in Panama? Inside Her Seven Failed Attempts to Return to Venezuela,” September 2026
• Al Jazeera, “Venezuela opposition rallies for Machado’s return,” September 27, 2026
• Gulf News / AFP, “Aide to Venezuelan opposition leader returns from exile,” September 28, 2026
• Latin Times, “Nicolás Maduro and Wife Case Takes Unexpected Turn As Longtime Prosecutor Leaves Months Ahead of Trial,” October 2, 2026
• NPR, “Ex-Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and wife seek to end drug charges case on immunity grounds,” September 3, 2026
• JURIST, “Ousted Venezuelan president Maduro and wife move to dismiss drug trafficking indictment on sovereign immunity grounds,” September 2026
• CBS News, “Most of Nicolás Maduro’s top aides remain in Venezuela. The U.S. could still come after them,” January 7, 2026
• Reuters (via U.S. News, Japan Times), “Cuban security forces exit Venezuela as US pressure mounts,” February 21, 2026
• Record of the January 2026 operation and interim succession: Wikipedia, “2026 United States intervention in Venezuela” (compiled from contemporaneous reporting)
• Voz de América, archival reporting on Eustoquio Contreras’s break with the PSUV, 2017
• Historical references: Spanish Law of Political Reform and PCE legalization (1977); Polish Round Table (1989); Pacto de Punto Fijo (1958) and the exclusion of the PCV