The former chief of Latin American operations at U.S. supermajor Chevron is in discussions with investors to raise $2 billion to invest in opportunities in Venezuela, the executive, Ali Moshiri, told the Financial Times in an interview published on Monday.
Moshiri is a former head of Latin American operations at Chevron. Now his company, Amos Global Energy Management, is in talks with institutional investors to raise money for several investment opportunities the firm has identified in Venezuela.
The capture of Nicolas Maduro by the United States and the statements from U.S. President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio that American oil companies would be very interested in rebuilding Venezuela’s oil industry has the oil sector buzzing about fresh opportunities in the country holding the world’s largest proven oil reserves of estimated more than 300 billion barrels.
“We’re going to have our very large U.S. oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country,” President Trump said on Saturday, shortly after the Venezuelan leader was captured and flown to the U.S. to face drug cartel-related charges.
Chevron is currently the only U.S. – and Western – company authorized to operate in Venezuela and export the crude to the United States.
Speaking to FT, Chevron’s former executive Moshiri said “We have been anticipating this breakthrough for a while and our $2bn private placement memorandum is ready to go with several investment targets identified.”
“Interest in Venezuela has gone from zero to 99 per cent,” the businessman told FT, adding “I’ve had a dozen calls over the past 24 hours from potential investors.”
Despite the initial enthusiasm, many analysts caution that restoring Venezuela’s oil production to its glory days of the mid-1970s would take about a decade and $100 billion in investment.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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