Another act at the Miraflores Palace, another signature with an international oil company, and another round of headlines. This Saturday, the head of PDVSA, Héctor Obregón, and the senior vice president for the Americas of TotalEnergies, Javier Rielo, affixed their signatures to a memorandum of understanding between the Venezuelan state company and TotalEnergies E&P New Ventures, a subsidiary of the French group. The document speaks of «strategic cooperation in the hydrocarbons sector,» but it does not include volumes, prices, timelines, or investment amounts. In practice, it is a letter of intent with a diplomatic seal.
The ceremony was led by the acting president, Delcy Rodríguez, with the Minister of Hydrocarbons, Paula Henao, and other company executives from the European firm present. From PitbullChain, we won’t repeat the communiqué: we’re going to break down what this could mean for the Venezuelan’s pocket, for the exchange rate, and for the people who live off USDT retail transactions.
📊 A memorandum isn’t a barrel
It is worth remembering the hierarchy of papers in the oil business. A memorandum of understanding is the lowest rung: it expresses an intention to talk. Next come commercial contracts, marketing schemes, and much later, capital disbursements. TotalEnergies itself had been talking since April that it was «about to» close commercial contracts, and its CFO, Jean-Pierre Sbraire, mentioned a plan to place part of Venezuela’s heavy crude on the Gulf of Mexico coast, with the Port Arthur refinery—about 238,000 barrels per day of capacity—as a possible destination.
That’s what matters: whether the crude leaves, whether it gets paid, and where the money comes in. Venezuela averaged 1,201,000 barrels per day in August, a jump of nearly 30% compared with the 924,000 of January, and the Executive says it has signed about fifty oil and gas agreements. The number sounds good, but the exchange market isn’t fed by press releases: it’s fed by foreign currency that effectively enters the system.
📈 Oil, cash flow, and the parallel price
In Venezuela there is an uncomfortable but real relationship between oil production and the rate of the unofficial dollar. More barrels exported and more effective collections often translate into a greater supply of foreign currency—via the BCV, via banks, via swaps—and over time that puts downward pressure on the parallel rate. When the flow is cut, the effect is the opposite: the FX gap widens and P2P soars.
The detail is that this effect comes with a delay. You don’t see it the same day as the announcement, or even in the same week. You see it when payments arrive, when the crude is settled, and when those foreign currencies land in the formal circuit. That’s why experienced operators don’t move their positions based on a photo from Miraflores.
🔎 Why P2P doesn’t react to press releases
The Venezuelan peer-to-peer market is, above all, a market of expectations and immediate liquidity. The prices you see on the platforms depend on how many people need to sell USDT today to cover expenses, how many people need to buy to pay a supplier abroad, and how much cash is available for mobile payments. A memorandum of understanding doesn’t change any of those three variables in the short term.
💰 What the USDT trader does watch
If you trade in P2P, there are three signals that matter more than any press conference:
• The spread between the official rate and the parallel rate. If the gap widens, P2P trading kicks in and P2P spreads get messy.
• The order-book depth. A market with a few large buyers and many small sellers anticipates downward pressure on the USDT price in bolívares.
• How easy it is to move money to and from the bank. Any operational tightening in digital banking hits P2P liquidity directly.
The deal with TotalEnergies doesn’t, by itself, change any of these three things. What could change them is what comes after: specific commercial contracts, transparent payment schemes, and—above all—the perception that the country is becoming a serious destination for foreign capital again. When that perception holds, it shows up as lower demand for FX hedging and, therefore, less pressure on the parallel rate.
📖 Read the full article: https://pitbullchain.com/noticias/pdvsa-y-totalenergies-firman-memorando-la-letra-pequena-que-mira-el-p2p-642313
📊 Live rates and analysis on https://pitbullchain.com
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