Top U.S. oil executives told President Donald Trump at the White House on Friday that Venezuela needs major reforms to attract investment.
President Trump said Friday that the industry will invest at least $100 billion to rebuild Venezuela’s energy sector in response to U.S. security. But the CEO of a major oil company thinks: exxon mobil and conocophilips The meeting did not commit to prompt re-entry to Venezuela.
Exxon CEO Darren Woods told President Trump that the Venezuelan market is currently “uninvestable.” Venezuela seized the assets of Exxon and Conoco in 2007, and Caracas owes both companies billions of dollars for unpaid arbitration claims.
“We’ve had our assets seized there twice, and you can imagine that re-entry a third time would require some pretty significant changes from what we’ve seen here so far,” Woods told Trump at the White House. “If you look at the legal and commercial structures and frameworks that are in place in Venezuela today, it is uninvestable.”
Woods said Exxon is prepared to send a technical team to assess the current state of Venezuela’s oil industry and assets.
ConocoPhillips CEO Ryan Lance congratulated President Trump on ousting former President Nicolas Maduro. He said the banking sector needs to help Venezuela restructure its debt and provide billions of dollars in loans to help rebuild the country’s infrastructure.
Reims also called for the restructuring of state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA).
“While we are thinking big and bold, we also need to think about restructuring the entire Venezuelan energy system, including PDVSA,” Lance told the president.
President Trump told Conoco’s CEO that the U.S. government is not considering recovering the assets the company lost in its 2007 nationalization.
“We don’t look at what people have lost in the past, because it’s their fault,” Trump said. “That was a different president. He’s going to make a lot of money, but we’re not going back.”
Chevron is the only US oil major operating in Venezuela through a joint venture with PDVSA. Vice Chairman Mark Nelson said Chevron has a path to rapidly increasing its current production of about 240,000 barrels per day.
“We have a path forward soon to be able to expand the withdrawals from joint ventures that essentially have 100% immediate effect,” Nelson told Trump. “Also, within the scope of our own disciplined investment plan, we are able to increase production by approximately 50% over the next 18 to 24 months.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent suggested Thursday that the United States may rely more on small and medium-sized oil companies to invest in Venezuela than the larger ones.
“The slow-moving big oil companies and their boards are not interested,” Bessent said Thursday at the Economic Club of Minnesota.
“What I can tell you is that independent oil companies, individuals, bandits – our phones are ringing off the hook,” Bessent said. “They want to go to Venezuela yesterday.”
