On April 17, 2024, it was a significant day for Harry Sargeant III. As Venezuela delved into the heated electoral campaign for the presidential election on July 28, the U.S. oil magnate quietly advanced with his own campaign: the acquisition of Venezuelan oil. He achieved a milestone: two companies associated with him, both established on that day in Caracas with the same office address and identical representatives, secured the rights to exploit several oil fields under a new legal framework set by the Chavista state.
Drawn by the largest crude oil reserves on the planet, and taking advantage of the easing of sanctions by Joe Biden’s administration while anticipating the return of his friend Donald Trump to the White House, Sargeant III pushed forward in 2024, pursuing an ambition he had long held. He had acknowledged to Reuters that his oil business in Venezuela dated back to the late 1980s but, much to his frustration, it was interrupted in 2005. Years later, in 2017, he met with Nicolas Maduro in Caracas, and by 2019, he managed to resume activities in Venezuela by securing a contract to operate in three oil fields with Erepla Services LLC, as reported by the news agency at that time.
His privileged connection with the top tier of the Chavista regime has fueled Sargeant’s ambitions for Venezuelan black gold, making it easier for him to forge alliances with local operators and other U.S. oil moguls. One of the first reported associates is Texan Rodney Ray Lewis, who has joined his commercial crusade.
This offensive is enabling Sargeant to gain more ground in the beleaguered national oil industry at a time when attention is focused on the deactivation of Chevron—currently only having a license for the basic maintenance of its assets in Venezuela granted by the Trump administration—and the uncertainty of when it will resume crude extraction operations.
Dozens of documents obtained for this report and testimonies from various reliable sources confirm this. Sargeant III is linked not only to North American Blue Energy Partners (Nabep), registered in Barbados and previously mentioned in press coverage, but also to LNGEG Growth I Corp, based in the British Virgin Islands, which until now had been little known to the public, with ties to the Palm Beach billionaire revealed here.
According to those documents, if PDVSA’s goals for these projects were met and necessary investments made, both companies could achieve a production of up to 441,000 barrels of oil per day—a significant number compared to current production levels. PDVSA’s figures indicate that from the million barrels daily it claims to produce, Chevron was contributing around 250,000, about a quarter of the national oil output, and around 30% of the foreign exchange managed by the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV), according to Ecoanalítica estimates.
On April 17, 2024, both companies registered their respective branches in Caracas and sealed several Participating Production Contracts (CPPs) with the Venezuelan state oil company. This scheme, designed by the Vice President and Minister of Oil, Delcy Rodríguez, operates under the secretive Anti-Blockade Law, approved in October 2020. The new legal framework aims to attract private investors to handle oil exploitation and production, offering more advantages than the usual “mixed company” format implemented by Hugo Chávez’s regime since the approval of the Organic Hydrocarbons Law in 2006, aligned with his slogan of “oil sovereignty.”
Forced partner, but still a partner
In the case of Nabep, the operation involves not only Sargeant III but also a veteran contractor of Chavismo and a former partner of PDVSA: Leopoldo Alejandro Betancourt López, one of the so-called “bolichicos,” all notorious for corrupt scandals with his company Derwick Associates in lucrative no-bid contracts during the 2010 electrical crisis. Notably, the address recorded for Nabep at registration is the same office in El Rosal that Derwick once used in the Torre Kyra and which was raided by Venezuelan authorities.
The contract signed between Nabep and PDVSA refers in its initial clauses to a “confidential agreement,” also dated April 17, 2024, involving PDVSA, the state-owned Corporación Venezolana de Petróleo (CVP), Nabep, Betancourt, and Sargeant III.
This agreement, signed by then PDVSA president Pedro Tellechea, who was imprisoned months later on corruption charges, set new terms for operations at Petrozamora, the joint venture managing fields like Lagunillas and Bachaquero in Zulia state, a traditional oil basin by Lake Maracaibo in northwest Venezuela. According to sources linked to Tellechea’s administration, the original plan had Sargeant III working not with Betancourt but in partnership with Wilmer Ruperti, current owner of the Tiburones de la Guaira baseball team and one of the regime’s favored businessmen in the oil sector since he provided gasoline vessels to Hugo Chávez to successfully confront the 2002 oil strike.
However, the threat of international legal action from Alejandro Betancourt, who had been one of PDVSA’s private partners in Petrozamora since 2013, dissuaded Tellechea and Sargeant III from finalizing the deal. Thus, the alliance in Nabep had to formalize between Sargeant III and Betancourt, allowing the latter to regain his share in Petrozamora. During Tareck El Aissami’s tenure as Minister of Oil, Betancourt was sidelined in favor of the Morón Hernández brothers, close to Nicolás Maduro Guerra, son of Nicolás Maduro.
Other connections between Nabep and the Florida magnate are more apparent. The website of the Barbados-registered company is just a front with a link leading to the site of Global Oil Management Group, the holding company through which Sargeant III manages most of his oil business in various jurisdictions, including Curacao, the former Dutch colony near the coast of Falcón state, where Venezuelan crude was processed into asphalt and shipped to the United States.
Neither Alejandro Betancourt nor Harry Sargeant III responded to requests for interviews for this report.
According to mercantile registry papers and data from the Venezuelan Social Security Institute (IVSS), Pedro Arturo Balart Alejos is the manager of the Nabep branch in Caracas. Previously, Balart Alejos was also linked to a service company affiliated with Gazprombank, which in turn is a Russian bank also associated with Alejandro Betancourt in the initial control of Petrozamora since 2013. Balart Alejos did not respond to interview requests via Whatsapp and email.
Another lawyer, Juan Carlos Andrade Santamaría, is one of the representatives of Nabep’s Venezuelan branch and serves as another connection to Sargeant III. Andrade Santamaría has an extensive background in the energy sector, having held positions such as director and legal advisor for Royal Dutch Shell in Venezuela, but was also close to Eulogio Del Pino, former PDVSA president, detained in 2017 and taken to trial in 2021 for alleged corruption, with no known outcome so far. However, more importantly, Andrade Santamaría acts as a representative for Sargeant III’s interests in Venezuela, according to several sources consulted for this report. This connection was also recently highlighted by the website La Gran Aldea in a note about the North American magnate. Andrade Santamaría also did not respond to interview requests sent via email.
The contract between Nabep and PDVSA allows Sargeant III and Betancourt’s company to claim up to 57% “of the total value of production” and grants them “full freedom to market the verifiable volume of hydrocarbons as agreed participation,” an appealing structure for any private partner, according to sources consulted.
Earlier this year, PDVSA also handed over the operation of the joint ventures of Petrocedeño and Junín Sur, responsible for the Zuata Principal and San Diego-Zuata fields in the Orinoco Oil Belt, to the company controlled by Sargeant III. The current production of these two areas, combined with Petrozamora, amounts to around 126,000 barrels of oil per day. However, if PDVSA’s projections were met and Nabep made the necessary operational investments, this production could rise to 408,000 barrels per day. Nonetheless, consulted sources doubt that this goal will be reached unless the Trump administration issues licenses allowing Sargeant III to operate in Venezuela, which is why the oil mogul is engaging in intense lobbying efforts with the White House.
Canadian amidst cumbia and joropo
But the forced alliance with Alejandro Betancourt, which allowed his return to the oil circuit, was not Sargeant III’s only strategy in his dealings with the Chavista state. He also leveraged his contacts to partner with another U.S. magnate, establishing a presence in Venezuela through another legal entity and under the umbrella of the CPPs.
This is the case with LNG Energy Group Corp, a Canadian company that also registered its subsidiary LNGEG Growth I in the British Virgin Islands. The latter, in turn, created a Venezuelan branch at the same office address previously used by Derwick and where Nabep operates, located on the 8th floor of Torre Kyra on Francisco de Miranda Avenue in the Campo Alegre urbanization in East Caracas.
In addition to the address, LNGEG Growth I shares representatives with Nabep: Juan Carlos Andrade Santamaría, the previously mentioned representative for Sargeant III in Venezuela, and also lawyers Oscar Eduardo Diesis Arias and Arturo Javier Jáuregui, as noted in the mercantile registry. It was also registered on the same day as Nabep, April 17, 2024, and the same day the agreement for participation in the CPPs was signed, according to the company itself.
A subsidiary of LNG Energy Group and listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, LNGEG Growth I disclosed some information last year regarding the two CPPs signed with PDVSA, noting a commitment to operating the onshore blocks Nipa-Nardo-Nieblas and Budare-Elotes—both in the Orinoco Oil Belt—projecting a potential future development investment of up to $106.3 million.
This report, dated April 24, 2024, stated that at that time, the two assigned blocks had a raw production of 3,000 barrels of “light and medium crude” per day. However, documents obtained by Armando.info indicate that LNGEG Growth I aims to achieve maximum production in each block slightly over 16,000 barrels per day, totaling just over 32,000 barrels per day. According to the agreement with PDVSA, LNGEG Growth I would obtain a net profit of between 50% and 56% of the production.
How does LNG Energy link through its subsidiary LNGEG Growth I with PDVSA and participate in the CPPs? The story recounts a series of connections leading back to Harry Sargeant III. He is the one who convinced Texas oil magnate Rodney Ray Lewis, according to sources within PDVSA familiar with the contracts under the CPP format.
Rod Lewis has an almost epic history of success in the oil industry, having purchased a well in Texas in 1982 and founding the still-existing parent company, Lewis Energy, the following year. He gained fame and fortune producing crude both in the United States and Mexico. Recently, in 2023, his interest in Latin America shifted further south to Venezuela. Ironically, to do this, he had to establish a company in the north, in Canada. This is LNG Energy Group, founded in Toronto in partnership with Venezuelan Pablo Navarro, but with a branch in Colombia since 2003. In that country, he currently manages gas exploitation operations in the Sinú-San Jacinto, Perdices, and VIM fields.
In 2023, Lewis completely ceded legal representation of LNG Energy Group in Colombia to Navarro, as well as of Lewis Energy. One source consulted for this report claims that this partnership between Lewis and Navarro was actually a step towards paving the way for LNG to enter the Venezuelan market, hoping that oil exploitation licenses would be maintained and promoted by Sargeant III before the Trump administration.
In its official reports, LNG Energy states several times that the CPPs were signed under the umbrella of licenses 44 and 44A issued by OFAC, thus permitting oil negotiations with Venezuela even under the U.S. sanctions against PDVSA. These licenses were valid until May 31, 2024, and have not been restored. “Now those guys are trapped,” states one consulted source, “because without licenses, they won’t risk operating.”
In the document transferring authority from Lewis to Navarro for management of LNG Energy in Colombia, Venezuelan Angel Roa Yustiz is designated as one of Navarro’s substitutes. Official documents consulted for this story reveal that in Venezuela, the representation of LNGEG Growth I is exercised by Roa Yustiz, who is also on the board of LNG Energy Group. Various consulted sources agree that Navarro acts as a representative of LNGEG Growth I before PDVSA for the business in Venezuela. Neither Roa Yustiz nor Navarro responded to interview requests for this report.
In the orbit of LNG Energy Group, Venezuelan Serafino Iacono also plays a role, having served until last year as one of the directors of NG Energy, also based in Canada -but in Calgary- and focused, like LNG, on gas exploitation in Colombia, near the Sinú block.
Serafino Iacono was one of the founders of the Colombian oil company -headquartered in Canada- Pacific Rubiales, which experienced a significant rise and fall between 2008 and 2014, causing quite a scandal in terms of business management. Another founder of Pacific Rubiales was Ronald Pantin, who currently serves on the board of NG Energy.
While there is no clear documentary connection between LNG Energy Group and Lewis Energy with NG Energy, there are indications to outline some links. One of these: Pablo Navarro, who heads the first two companies in Colombia, was the Bank of America (BofA) executive interacting with Iacono when the U.S. bank financed Pacific Rubiales, according to several sources.
Suspicions about a potential connection between the companies, as well as a possible role of Serafino Iacono in LNG Energy Group and Lewis Energy, are also shared by judicial authorities in Colombia. A recent investigation by the Attorney General of that country concerning the president of the semi-state Colombian Ecopetrol, Ricardo Roa, for possible corruption related to the purchase of an apartment from Iacono in Bogotá, seeks to determine if LNG Energy or Lewis Energy have contracted with Ecopetrol and thus infer possible conflicts of interest.
“To ascertain whether Lewis Energy Colombia Inc and LNG Energy International have done business with Ecopetrol from 2022 to date,” instructs the report from the Colombian Attorney General, further stating: “If so, who signed them, their corresponding object, and how they have been executed.”
The recent suspension of oil licenses by the Trump administration keeps the projects of Nabep and LNGEG Growth I in limbo, but for now, Harry Sargeant III and his local operators maintain a privileged position in Venezuelan oil fields.
**Isayén Herrera contributed to the reporting of this story.
