Venezuela's oil has always run through the state. Alejandro Betancourt López is building something the country hasn't really had at scale: a large private producer at the center of the industry. A Private Operator in a State-Run Industry For decades, Venezuela's crude was the domain of the national oil company, and private operators existed mostly at the margins. Betancourt's North American Blue Energy Partners has become the exception at scale, the second-largest private producer in the country behind only Chevron, pumping about 200,000 barrels a day from fields around Lake Maracaibo and the Orinoco Belt. When the sector reopened, that…