Chevron is expanding its footprint in Venezuela under new agreements that call for more than $7 billion in investment over the next five years and aim to more than double production from its joint ventures in the country.

The oil giant said Wednesday that the agreements establish updated fiscal, commercial and legal terms for its Venezuelan joint ventures, creating conditions for additional investment, development and production growth.

Chevron expects the joint ventures to increase production to approximately 600,000 barrels per day, while keeping total costs below $20 per barrel. Production across Chevron’s three Venezuelan joint ventures has already increased 15% so far this year, the company said. Venezuela holds the world’s largest proven oil reserves, according to OPEC data, though years of underinvestment, sanctions and operational decline have left output far below the levels of the early 2000s.

As part of the latest agreements, Chevron’s Petroindependencia joint venture was assigned rights to develop the adjacent Carabobo-1 and Carabobo-2-South-A areas in Venezuela’s Orinoco Oil Belt, the heavy-oil region in the country’s south that holds the bulk of those reserves and has long been viewed as a key target for production growth.

The expansion builds on an April agreement that increased Chevron’s working interest in Petroindependencia to 49%. That deal also gave the Petropiar joint venture, in which Chevron holds a 30% interest, rights to develop the adjacent Ayacucho 8 area.

"With improved terms and additional acreage, we are strengthening a portfolio that we believe can deliver attractive low-cost oil growth, support energy supply and create differentiated long-term value," Chevron Chairman and CEO Mike Wirth said in a statement.

The investment push comes amid a major shift in the U.S.-Venezuela relationship following the January U.S. military operation that captured former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in Caracas. Maduro was brought to the U.S. to face federal drug-trafficking charges.

Separately, the Trump administration announced an oil agreement last month involving approximately 65 billion barrels of proven Venezuelan reserves. Under the arrangement, Venezuelan interim authorities granted North American Blue Energy Partners 100-year concessions covering 17 oil fields, while the U.S. government secured majority ownership and governance rights in the venture.

Against that backdrop, Chevron credited the Trump administration, including the U.S. Department of Energy, with helping facilitate conditions for further investment and growth in Venezuela. Chevron was the last major U.S. oil company still operating in Venezuela in recent years, having maintained a limited license to operate under earlier U.S. sanctions regimes.

"Continued engagement between government and industry is essential to advancing projects that support energy security, economic growth and continued investment," Wirth said.