\n<\/p>\n
Donald Trump promised oil giants \u201ctotal safety, total security\u201d in Venezuela in an effort to persuade them to invest $100bn in the country\u2019s infrastructure after US forces toppled Nicol\u00e1s Maduro from power.<\/p>\n
At a roundtable press conference at the White House on Friday afternoon with more than a dozen oil executives, including leaders from Chevron, ExxonMobil and ConocoPhilips, the US president doubled down on claims that Maduro\u2019s arrest presents American oil companies with an unprecedented opportunity for extraction.<\/p>\n
Many of the executives expressed support for the Trump administration\u2019s actions in Venezuela last weekend \u2013 and hinted that they stood ready to invest.<\/p>\n
Analysts have expressed skepticism that oil firms will invest vast sums as rapidly as Trump has suggested they will. Earlier this week, the president suggested production in Venezuela could be boosted within 18 months.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to be extracting numbers in terms of oil like few people have seen,\u201d he said on Friday, emphasizing that the US stands to benefit from lower energy prices. \u201cVenezuela is going to be very successful, and the people of the United States are going to be big beneficiaries.\u201d<\/p>\n
Notably, Trump said the investment would be coming from the oil companies, not the federal government. Earlier in the week, he had suggested that the US taxpayer might fund their investments.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe plan is for them to spend, meaning our giant oil companies will be spending at least $100bn of their money, not the government\u2019s money,\u201d Trump said. \u201cThey don\u2019t need government money, but they need government protection and government security.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump warned the assembled executives that, if they aren\u2019t interested in rebuilding efforts: \u201cI got 25 people that aren\u2019t here today that are willing to take your place.\u201d<\/p>\n
While he offered them \u201ctotal safety\u201d, the president also suggested some of the oil firms present did not need the US government\u2019s help. \u201cThese are people that drill oil in some pretty rough places,\u201d he said. \u201cI could say a couple of those places make Venezuela look like a picnic.\u201d<\/p>\n
In brief remarks, oil executives \u2013 for many, the first public statements since Maduro\u2019s capture \u2013 expressed willingness to rebuild Venezuela\u2019s oil infrastructure with the US government\u2019s reassurances.<\/p>\n
Chevron \u201chas been a part of Venezuela\u2019s past, we are certainly committed to its present, and we very much look forward as a proud American company to help it build a better future\u201d, said Mark Nelson, vice-chair of Chevron, currently the only US major that regularly exports Venezuelan oil.<\/p>\n
Nelson said the company currently had 3,000 employees across four different joint ventures in Venezuela and that it had the capacity to \u201cincrease our liftings from those joint ventures 100% essentially, effective immediately\u201d.<\/p>\n
Darren Woods, Exxon\u2019s chief executive, said the company expected \u201csignificant changes\u201d to Venezuela\u2019s legal and commercial landscapes in order for the company to reinvest in the country. \u201cToday it\u2019s uninvestable,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re confident that with this administration and President Trump, working hand in hand with the Venezuelan government, that those changes can be put in place,\u201d Woods said.<\/p>\n
The ConocoPhillips CEO, Ryan Lance, echoed the cautious optimism, saying that \u201cthere\u2019s an opportunity to be quick, fast and restore the quality of what\u2019s been lost in Venezuela over the last 25 years\u201d.<\/p>\n
Lance also noted that ConocoPhillips is Venezuela\u2019s largest non-sovereign credit holder, with the country holding $12bn in debt to the company. Though Trump assured the company that it will get its money back, \u201cwe\u2019re going to start with an even plate\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not going to look at what people lost in the past, because that was their fault. That was a different president. We\u2019re going to make a lot of money, but we\u2019re not going to go back,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Venezuela\u2019s oil reserves are reputedly the world\u2019s largest. While the country\u2019s oil industry experienced a boom in the late 90s and early 2000s, the then Venezuelan president, Hugo Ch\u00e1vez, eventually reasserted state control over the industry in the mid-2000s. In the years since, oil production in the country has fallen drastically as its infrastructure aged and investment dried up.<\/p>\n
Though Maduro is being tried in US federal court on \u201cnarco-terrorism\u201d charges, Trump has been very enthusiastic about Venezuela opening back up to the American oil industry. On Wednesday, the White House said that it planned to control Venezuela\u2019s oil \u201cindefinitely\u201d and that it would sell billions of dollars\u2019 worth of recently seized crude oil.<\/p>\n
History from the last two decades has shown that foreign intervention can have an impact on a country\u2019s oil output, but with mixed and unstable results.<\/p>\n
Oil is experiencing a global surplus. Average US gas prices are now about 25 cents lower than last year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Donald Trump promised oil giants \u201ctotal safety, total security\u201d in Venezuela in an effort to persuade them to invest $100bn in the country\u2019s infrastructure after US forces toppled Nicol\u00e1s Maduro from power. At a roundtable press conference at the White House on Friday afternoon with more than a dozen oil executives, including leaders from Chevron,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41122,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[727,477,964,423,268,1529,253,8670,81,3213,4723],"class_list":{"0":"post-41121","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-billions","9":"tag-companies","10":"tag-donald","11":"tag-invest","12":"tag-oil","13":"tag-promises","14":"tag-safety","15":"tag-total","16":"tag-trump","17":"tag-urges","18":"tag-venezuela"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}