Jan 16 (Reuters) – Four Venezuelan banks were notified this week by the country’s government that they will split $300 million of oil revenues deposited in an account in Qatar, enabling them to sell dollars to Venezuelan companies that need foreign exchange to pay for materials, two financial sources and an analyst said.
The injection of foreign capital comes after weeks of tightening supplies of dollars, as the U.S. seized Venezuelan oil tankers and hit the country’s top revenue flow.
Venezuelan companies needing to import raw materials have long had to exchange their local bolivars for dollars held by the central bank, after being generated by oil sales and through transactions made with foreign credit cards within the country.
The U.S. said this week it had completed the first $500 million in sales of Venezuelan oil, part of a $2 billion agreement reached this month following the ouster of President Nicolas Maduro and swearing in of interim leader Delcy Rodriguez. U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has said Venezuela will sell between 30 million and 50 million barrels.
An industry source familiar with the plan said the main account for the transactions was located in Qatar.
Part of the revenue will go to social projects and infrastructure, Rodriguez said on Thursday, as she submitted a proposed reform of the hydrocarbons law, aimed at boosting oil investment, to the country’s legislature.
Authorities on Thursday told the four local financial institutions, all with correspondent banks outside the country, that they will receive about $75 million each in the coming days from oil income, the two sources said.
The dollars can then be sold to companies within Venezuela under central bank guidelines, the sources added. Neither the finance ministry nor the central bank responded to requests for comment.
“Some $500 million has already been deposited in the Qatar trust. Of that amount, $300 million will be sold to four large private banks,” economist Alejandro Grisanti, director of local analyst firm Ecoanalitica, wrote on X on Friday. “The operations will not go through the central bank because the institution remains under sanctions for now.”
The Venezuelan government began allowing use of dollar‑linked cryptocurrencies like USDT, on the exchange market in the second half of 2025, after the U.S. issued Chevron a restricted license to export crude but barred payments to the government.
But even crypto flows to the private sector had fallen, one of the sources said, adding that if more dollars enter from crude sales, allocations via crypto are likely to decline.
The bolivar weakened 83% in 2025, accelerating price increases.
(Reporting by Reuters; Editing by David Gregorio)
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