President Donald Trump will be meeting with oil industry executives this week to discuss the potential boost in Venezuelan oil production, Reuters has reported, citing unnamed sources.
The oil issue was top of the U.S. president’s agenda for Venezuela, as declared after the announcement of air strikes on Caracas and the capture of President Nicolas Maduro.
Reuters cited unnamed oil industry executives who, despite declarations made by President Trump, claimed that Exxon, ConocoPhilips, and Chevron had yet to discuss the future of Venezuela’s oil industry.
“Nobody in those three companies has had conversations with the White House about operating in Venezuela, pre-removal or post-removal to this point,” one of the Reuters sources said, the removal referring to the capture of President Maduro, which some have called an arrest and others a kidnapping.
“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 press secretary Taylor Rogers said in an official statement.
According to a Wall Street Journal report from Monday, President Trump had hinted to top oil executives that change was coming to Venezuela. The hint, per the WSJ, came in the form of a message that said “Get ready”, about a month before last weekend’s incursion into Venezuela.
“We are going to be taking a tremendous amount of wealth out of the ground,” the U.S. president said at a press conference last weekend, no longer resorting to hints. “We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country.”
What remains unclear is how enthusiastic Big Oil would be, with media reporting that the investment required for the production boost would be considerable and take years to yield results.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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