Goldman Sachs projects a modest rise in Venezuela's crude oil production, yet persistent infrastructure bottlenecks are expected to prevent daily output from returning to pre-2018 levels of over 2 million barrels within the next two years. In a report dated September 2, Goldman Sachs analysts highlighted that Venezuela's aging infrastructure and unstable power supply pose costly hurdles that cannot be swiftly resolved, keeping production capacity limited.

Venezuela's crude oil production averaged 1.1 million barrels per day in July. On the export front, combined shipments of crude and condensate have surged by 400,000 barrels per day year-over-year, with the United States emerging as the largest buyer over the past five months.

Trends in China, meanwhile, show a dip in overall crude imports, trailing seasonal norms by roughly 3 million barrels per day over the last two weeks, after a brief recovery in early August, as noted by Goldman Sachs.