🇺🇸🛢🇻🇪 Trump’s Venezuela Oil Revival Plan Is a $100 Billion Gamble

Realizing President Donald Trump’s plan for a US-led revival of Venezuela’s beleaguered oil industry could be a years-long and challenging process costing upwards of $100 billion.

Years of corruption, underinvestment, fires and thefts have left the nation’s crude infrastructure in tatters. Rebuilding it enough to lift Venezuela’s output back to its peak levels of the 1970s would require companies that could include Chevron Corp., Exxon Mobil Corp. and ConocoPhillips to invest about $10 billion per year over the next decade, said Francisco Monaldi, director of Latin American energy policy at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.

“A faster recovery would require even more investment,” Monaldi said.

Venezuela sits atop the world’s largest oil reserves. But output plummeted during the 12-year term of President Nicolás Maduro, who was captured early Saturday by US troops. The nation currently produces about 1 million barrels a day, compared to nearly 4 million barrels in 1974.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said during an interview with ABC Sunday that he expects US oil companies will be eager for the opportunity to drill for Venezuela’s heavy crude, which is key for refineries on the US Gulf Coast.

“I haven’t spoken to US oil companies in the last few days, but we’re pretty certain that there will be dramatic interest,” Rubio said. “I think there will be tremendous demand and interest from private industry if given the space to do it.”

Yet before they set foot in Venezuela, companies will want to be certain it’s stable, according to Lino Carrillo, a former manager at the nation’s state oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela SA, who fled the country more than two decades ago.

“For any oil companies to actually get serious about investing in Venezuela would require that there will be a new congress or National Assembly,” Carrillo said in an interview. “Not what’s happening now. Definitely not.”

The work needed to repair the nation’s infrastructure, meanwhile, is vast.
At Venezuela’s oil ports, the equipment is in such poor shape that it takes up to five days to fully load supertankers that deliver crude to China. Seven years ago, it took just one day.

What’s left of Venezuela’s production relies heavily on Chevron, the only major US oil company still operating in the country. The Houston-based company accounts for about 25% of the nation’s output, working under a special licenses that allows it to remain there despite US sanctions.

The other two US companies that would be best positioned to help rebuild Venezuela, given their size and experience, are Exxon and ConocoPhillips, analysts said. Both worked there previously but left after their assets were nationalized by Maduro’s predecessor, the late Hugo Chavez, in the mid-2000s.

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