Big Oil doesn’t share Trump’s dream of making Venezuelan oil great again

By Matt Egan, CNN

Analysis: President Donald Trump may have made a major miscalculation about Venezuela's oil.

Trump has expressed excitement over the prospect of US oil companies getting their hands on Venezuela's vast oil resources.

But industry sources tell CNN that American oil executives are unlikely to dive headfirst into Venezuela for multiple reasons: The situation on the ground remains very uncertain, Venezuela's oil industry is in shambles and Caracas has a history of seizing US oil assets.

Perhaps the biggest problem is that oil prices are too low today to justify spending the gobs of money - possibly tens of billions of dollars - that would be required to revive Venezuela's decaying oil industry.

"The appetite for jumping into Venezuela right now is pretty low. We have no idea what the government there will look like," one well-placed industry source told CNN on Monday. "The president's desire is different than the industry's. And the White House would have known that if they had communicated with the industry prior to the operation on Saturday."

"All of our oil companies are ready and willing to make big investments in Venezuela that will rebuild their oil infrastructure, which was destroyed by the illegitimate Maduro regime," White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said in a statement to CNN. "American oil companies will do an incredible job for the people of Venezuela and will represent the United States well."

A senior White House official told CNN that Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Secretary of State Marco Rubio will be leading the effort to engage with the oil industry on behalf of Trump. The official said correspondence with oil companies has already begun and will continue.

Wright will meet with oil executives this week to discuss US companies once again standing up drilling for oil in Venezuela, a spokesperson for the Energy Department said.

Two sources previously told CNN that while Trump officials engaged US oil companies to weigh interest in returning to Venezuela, energy companies were reluctant to commit to reinvesting there.

'Rhetoric before reality'

Venezuela has more proven oil reserves than any country on the planet, more than Iraq, Russia and the United States combined, according to federal estimates.

Yet when oil companies decide to invest in far-flung drilling projects, they need confidence about what the operating environment there will look like years, if not decades, into the future. These days it's hard to feel solid about Venezuela's form of government and institutions weeks from now, let alone years.

"Just because there are oil reserves - even the largest in the world - doesn't mean you're necessarily going to produce there," another industry source told CNN. "This isn't like standing up a food truck operation."

This source said the Trump administration put "rhetoric before reality" and stressed political stability is "paramount" when companies weigh investing overseas.

'Venezuela is broke'

Years of underinvestment, economic crisis and international exile have left Venezuela's oil infrastructure in a state of disrepair.

"Venezuela is broke. It doesn't have any money. The national oil company is in disarray. It can barely feed its people," said Luisa Palacios, a former Citgo chairwoman who was born and raised in Venezuela.

Just to keep Venezuela's oil production flat at 1.1 million barrels per day - roughly equal to what North Dakota currently produces - would require about US$53 billion of investment over the next 15 years, according to estimates published Monday by consulting firm Rystad Energy.

However, to return Venezuela to its glory days of 3 million barrels per day from the late 1990s, total oil and gas capital spending would need to reach a staggering US$183 billion through 2040, according to Rystad's analysis.

That huge figure reflects not only Venezuela's aging infrastructure but the fact that most of its oil is considered "heavy," a blend of crude that is harder and more expensive to refine and process than the lighter oil found in the Permian Basin of West Texas.

US$60 oil won't inspire investment

Crude is also cheap right now. Oil prices plunged by 20 percent last year - their worst since 2020.

Cheap oil is great for consumers, driving down gasoline prices to four-year lows. However, that same low-price environment makes oil CEOs, and their shareholders, reluctant to gamble on risky projects.

"The idea that there will be an overnight restart of the Venezuelan oil industry is just unrealistic. It's all very premature," said Doug Leggate, Wolfe Research's managing director of integrated oil, refiners and exploration & production.

Of course, it's possible the Trump administration could try to overcome these concerns by making guarantees designed to incentivise US investment in Venezuela. It's too early to say whether such incentives will be offered.

Chevron could stand to gain

In any case, analysts and industry executives say only a select few US oil companies have the deep pockets and knowhow to develop production in Venezuela.

Chevron is at the top of that list because the Houston-based company is the only major Western oil giant that has kept a significant footprint in Venezuela throughout decades of upheaval.

"Chevron is the best positioned among US oil companies - by far," said Francisco Monaldi, a fellow in Latin American energy policy at Rice University.

Chevron currently produces about 150,000 barrels per day in Venezuela, according to Rystad, operating under a sanctions license the Trump administration recently extended.

Chevron declined to answer questions about its level of interest in ramping up production in Venezuela now that President Nicolás Maduro has been removed from power.

Exxon and Conoco are owed billions

ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips, two other major US oil companies, also have the expertise and balance sheets to help revive Venezuela.

Yet both companies may still be scarred from their prior experiences in Venezuela.

Former Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez nationalised Exxon and Conoco's oil assets around 2006. While Chevron decided to stay and work with Caracas, Exxon and Conoco left and had their assets seized.

Conoco is still trying to recover an estimated US$12 billion from the prior nationalisation of its Venezuela assets, while ExxonMobil is seeking to recover almost US$2 billion, according to Reuters.

"Venezuela is the country that has seen the most expropriation cases brought against it. This means the starting risk premium there is very high," said Palacios, the former Citgo executive who is now interim director of research and managing director of energy transition finance at Columbia University's Center on Global Energy Policy.

Exxon is focused on developing blockbuster oil discoveries in nearby Guyana, which in the span of a few years has gone from almost no oil production to surpassing that of Venezuela.

"Venezuela is not the only game in town - not even in Latin America," Palacios said.

- CNN