(Bloomberg) — Venezuela has released a prominent oil consultant, who also holds American citizenship, after four days of detention. The case highlights persistent risks for the country as the Washington-backed government in Caracas seeks to revive the oil industry.
Evanan Romero, 86 years old, Venezuelan by birth and resident in Houston, is a consultant for international oil companies and advisor to the opposition leader, María Corina Machado.
Romero was released on Tuesday after his arrest in the western city of Maracaibo on Friday, according to people who requested anonymity to discuss private matters. He had been transferred to a private clinic in the city as a health precaution. However, he remained in custody due to a pending legal dispute over alleged fraud dating back to 2010, a case that Venezuelan authorities reported to Interpol, the sources said. The previous government frequently reported cases against political opponents to the international law enforcement agency.
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Venezuela lacks an independent and credible judicial system, making it difficult for outside observers to determine whether arrests are politically motivated or legitimate.
Calls to Romero’s cellphone on Tuesday were not answered.
Romero is not the first American citizen arrested in Venezuela following the US capture of former president Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, in early January. At least one other dual national was arrested last month, said people familiar with the case who were not authorized to speak publicly. That person was later released and returned to the US on January 30, along with a Peruvian-American who had been arrested in late 2025 and was also released on the same day.
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Another American-Venezuelan citizen, José Ignacio Moreno Suárez, a lawyer for mining company Gold Reserve, was arrested in 2023 and remains detained amid an ongoing arbitration dispute, the company said in January.
Venezuela says it has so far released more than 800 people — most of them Venezuelans — as a “gesture of peace,” but independent organizations say they have only managed to verify half of them. More than 800 remain imprisoned, according to Justicia, Encuentro y Perdón, a local non-governmental organization that monitors detentions.
The State Department did not immediately comment on Romero’s arrest and subsequent release. The department maintains a “do not travel” alert for Venezuela.
Venezuela’s Ministry of Information did not respond to a request for comment.
Romero’s detention demonstrates that although the new leadership in Caracas is acting more cautiously than the previous one, “their campaign of repression continues,” said Geoff Ramsey, who follows the situation in Venezuela at the Atlantic Council, a think tank in Washington.
Relaxation of Sanctions
In recent weeks, the Trump administration has eased sanctions but maintains tight control over oil revenue as current leader Delcy Rodríguez, Maduro’s former vice president, consolidates power.
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Chevron Corp. is currently the only American oil company with active operations in Venezuela. European companies BP PLC, Eni SpA, Repsol SA and Shell PLC also received the green light from the US to operate in the country.
It’s unclear how the Trump administration will respond to the Romero case, given its grand plans for the Venezuelan oil sector, Ramsey said. “The big question is how this will be received in Washington and whether the US will pressure Rodríguez to make it clear that any arrests that could jeopardize energy investment are off the table.”
Over the course of his long career, Romero helped found Intevep, the research arm of Petróleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA), the Venezuelan state oil company, and served as deputy minister of petroleum in the late 1990s. He was also a board member of PDVSA.
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The veteran petroleum engineer graduated from the University of Tulsa, a trajectory typical of a generation of Venezuelans who studied in the US and contributed to making the South American nation one of the largest oil producers after nationalization in the 1970s.
State industry began to decline after the late socialist leader Hugo Chávez took power in 1999 and began a wave of expropriations. Current production is about a third of the 1990s level.
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