Leading U.S. oil executives told President Donald Trump at the White House on Friday that Venezuela will need major reforms to attract investment.
Trump said Friday the industry would invest at least $100 billion to rebuild Venezuela’s energy sector with U.S. security guarantees. But the CEOs of big oil companies like ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips did not commit at the meeting to quickly re-enter Venezuela.
Exxon CEO Darren Woods told Trump that the Venezuelan market is “uninvestable” in its current state. Venezuela seized Exxon’s and Conoco’s assets in 2007, and Caracas owes the companies billions of dollars in outstanding claims from arbitration cases.
“We’ve had our assets seized there twice, and so you can imagine to re-enter a third time would require some pretty significant changes from what we’ve historically seen here,” Woods told Trump at the White House. “If we look at the legal and commercial constructs and frameworks in place today in Venezuela today, it’s uninvestable.”
Exxon is prepared to send a technical team to evaluate the current state of Venezuela’s oil industry and assets, Woods said.
ConocoPhillips CEO Ryan Lance congratulated Trump on 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 for the restore the country’s infrastructure.
Lance also called for the restructuring of state-owned oil company Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA).
“As we think that big and bold, we need to be also thinking about even restructuring the entire Venezuelan energy system including PDVSA,” Lance told the president.
Trump told the Conoco CEO that the U.S. government is not looking at recovering the assets the company lost during the 2007 nationalization.
“We’re not going to look at what people lost in the past, because that was their fault,” Trump said. “That was a different president. You’re going to make a lot of money, but we’re not going to go back.”
Chevron is the only U.S. oil major operating in Venezuela through joint ventures with PDVSA. Vice Chairman Mark Nelson said Chevron has a way forward to rapidly ramp up its production, which currently stands at about 240,000 barrels per day.
“We have a path forward here very shortly to be able to increase our liftings from those joint ventures 100% essentially effective immediately,” Nelson told Trump. “We are also able to increase our production within our own disciplined investment schemes by about 50% just in the next 18 to 24 months.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent indicated Thursday that the U.S. might rely more on smaller oil companies, rather than the majors, to invest in Venezuela.
“The big oil companies who move slowly, who have corporate boards, are not interested,” Bessent said Thursday at the Economic Club of Minnesota.
“I can tell you that the independent oil companies and individuals, wildcatters – our phones are ringing off the hook,” Bessent said. “They want to get to Venezuela yesterday.”