What the Big Oil executives told Trump about investing in Venezuela
Venezuela will need major reforms to attract investment, top U.S. oil executives told President Donald Trump at the White House on Friday.
Trump said Friday the industry would invest at least $100 billion to rebuild Venezuela’s energy sector with U.S. security guarantees. But CEOs of major oil companies ExxonMobil And ConocoPhillips He did not commit to quickly re-entering Venezuela at the meeting.
Exxon CEO Darren Woods told Trump that the Venezuelan market is “uninvestable” in its current form. Venezuela seized the assets of Exxon and Conoco in 2007, and Caracas owes those companies billions of dollars in arbitration cases.
“Our assets have been seized there twice, and so you can imagine going back in for a third time would require some pretty significant changes from what we’ve seen historically here,” Woods told Trump in a speech at the White House. he said. “If we look at the legal and business structures and frameworks that exist in Venezuela today, we see that they are uninvestable.”
Woods said Exxon is ready to send a technical team to assess the current state of Venezuela’s oil industry and assets.
ConocoPhillips CEO Ryan Lance congratulated Trump for ousting former President Nicolás Maduro. He said the banking sector will need to help restructure Venezuela’s debt and provide billions of dollars in financing to repair the country’s infrastructure.
Lance also called for the restructuring of state-owned oil company Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA).
“Because we think this is big and bold, we should even consider restructuring the entire Venezuelan energy system, including PDVSA,” Lance told the president. he said.
Trump told Conoco CEO that the U.S. government does not intend to recover assets the company lost during the 2007 nationalization.
“We’re not going to look at what people lost in the past because it was their fault,” Trump said. “He was a different president. You’ll make a lot of money, but we’re not coming back.”
Chevron is the only US oil major operating in Venezuela through joint ventures with PDVSA. Executive Vice President Mark Nelson said Chevron has a path forward to rapidly increase production, which currently stands at about 240,000 barrels per day.
“We have a path forward in a very short period of time to be able to immediately effectively increase the payload we get from these joint initiatives to 100%,” Nelson told Trump. “We will also be able to increase our production by approximately 50% in the next 18 to 24 months within our own disciplined investment plans.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent indicated Thursday that the United States may rely more on small oil companies rather than major oil companies to invest in Venezuela.
“Big oil companies with slow-moving, corporate boards of directors are not interested,” Bessent told the Economic Club of Minnesota on Thursday. he said.
“I can tell you that independent oil companies and individuals, wild predators, our phones are ringing non-stop,” Bessent said. “They want to arrive in Venezuela yesterday.”
