(WO) – Primavera, a natural resources company based in Houston and Caracas, is preparing to take over operations of oil fields in Venezuela and has hired executives from Occidental Petroleum and Chevron. The company will operate the fields under agreements signed with Venezuela’s Ministry of Hydrocarbons and PDVSA on Sept. 2 at Miraflores Palace in Caracas.
Oscar Quintero, formerly president of Occidental’s EOR division in Houston, will lead Primavera’s operating team in Venezuela. At Occidental, he worked across the company’s conventional and unconventional assets, including the Permian basin. Before that, he worked at Shell and Hess, where he gained drilling and field operations experience at large conventional assets in Russia, Indonesia, India and the U.S. Quintero was born in Venezuela and is returning there with his family. “Like so many others, including my parents, Oscar was forced to leave Venezuela in pursuit of opportunity elsewhere,” said Primavera co-founder Manuel Iribarren. “Today, he and I and countless others are returning with the hope of helping build a bright future for a country that truly deserves it.”
Primavera also hired three executives who served together on Chevron Venezuela’s leadership team:
Mario Gandara, chief commercial officer
Jorge Castro, SVP of finance and business management
Ivette Lopez, VP of legal and compliance
All three held similar roles at Chevron. The company said their experience and relationships in the country will help it work with the ministry, PDVSA and local communities. Other new hires include Troy Finney, VP of operations, who has decades of experience operating conventional assets in South America. John Grimmer joins as VP of engineering and evaluations after more than 20 years with private energy companies in North America. Michael Jensen, VP of health, safety, security and environmental operations, is a U.S. Air Force veteran who spent more than 20 years in special forces and most recently served on the National Security Council.
“There are very few private companies today with this level of international operating experience and management talent,” said co-founder Dheeraj Verma. He added that the company’s priority is near-term growth: “We care about quickly growing production in partnership with PDVSA and creating hundreds of new jobs in Venezuela and Texas.”
Primavera said it plans to scale crude oil development quickly and will announce milestones in the coming months. It did not say which fields it will operate or give production targets.
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