Chevron locked in new terms in the Orinoco Belt, the world's largest oil reserve.

For investors, Venezuela offers potentially high-margin production growth without changing Chevron's broader capital discipline. The company generated $15.4 billion in adjusted free cash flow in Q2 and returned $6.5 billion to shareholders, giving it considerable financial capacity to fund the expansion.

Chevron is expanding its Venezuela oil operations with more than $7 billion in planned investment and new acreage as it targets sharply higher production.