US drone strike hits ELN camp on Venezuelan soil, at least 20 dead in Apure operation backed by American intelligence and drones, century-long oil concessions worth up to 100 billion dollars take shape the same week

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The US takes its anti-narcotics war onto Venezuelan soil with a drone strike against the ELN english.elpais.com

zerohedge.com

A drone strike on a camp of Colombia's National Liberation Army in the Venezuelan border state of Apure killed at least 20 people last Friday, according to the human rights organization Fundaredes, which counted 23 dead and an undetermined number of wounded at what it described as an ELN base used for cocaine distribution. The New York Times reported on Tuesday, citing four US officials, that the operation was carried out with American intelligence and drone support. A senior Venezuelan military officer confirmed the attack; the Venezuelan government has not reported on it.

The strike extends a campaign that began with attacks on suspected drug boats off the Venezuelan and Colombian coasts and has now moved onto land. In June, an airstrike killed Héctor Guerrero Flores, the leader of Tren de Aragua, in the gold mines of Bolívar state — a killing Donald Trump claimed on social media. Former president Nicolás Maduro was captured by US forces on January 3 and is in American custody, and the Times now reports that Washington and Caracas are evaluating the deployment of American troops in Venezuela. Interior minister Diosdado Cabello dispatched the scientific police to investigate what he called "strange deaths" and sent troops to the Colombian border, while insisting: "We do not want internal conflicts in Venezuela, especially those that are not ours." Local reporters identified eight of the dead through the morgue, the hospital and the cemetery of San Fernando de Apure; two were Colombian and four Mexican. The ELN fields between 900 and 2,000 fighters across at least 38 border municipalities, running clandestine airstrips, fuel and mineral smuggling and extortion.

The same week, the commercial counterpart was advancing. The US-backed interim government installed after Maduro's capture has granted North American Blue Energy Partners — a closely held, previously little-known company led by the Venezuela-born businessman Alejandro Betancourt — 100-year concessions on 17 oilfields with roughly 65 billion barrels of proven reserves, and as much as 100 billion dollars in planned investment. Reuters, citing more than a dozen oil workers, contractors and industry experts, reported that the company could struggle to hire workers, compete for rigs and secure capital. NABEP answered with a complaint about a "biased narrative," a count of nine rigs currently drilling — 41 of 60 announced rigs due in-country this month — and a claim to have grown its Venezuelan production from 18,000 to 223,000 barrels a day in two years on about a billion dollars of its own money.

Chevron has pledged more than seven billion dollars to roughly double its Venezuelan production by 2031. Eni, Repsol, BP, Halliburton and Continental Resources have returned under a legal and regulatory framework rewritten since the capture.

NABEP says it is paying for every rig with the oil it produces, plans no outside funding, and has released few details about how its operations are financed. The White House calls it the biggest oil deal in world history.