Jan. 9 (UPI) — President Donald Trump and executives for several U.S. oil and gas companies discussed a potential $100 billion investment in Venezuela’s energy sector Friday after Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s capture.
Trump met with executives from Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil and other U.S. oil and gas firms and encouraged them to invest $100 billion to refine and sell seized Venezuelan oil, CBS News reported.
The president offered to guarantee the security of oil and gas companies if they returned to Venezuela, which decades ago seized infrastructure owned and built by U.S. firms when former President Hugo Chavez nationalized the country’s oil and gas industry.
With the backing of the United States and security assurances, Trump said the oil and gas companies would “get their money back and make a very nice return,” as reported by CNBC.
He offered to make a deal with the oil and gas companies as soon as Friday and said it would help to lower energy costs for U.S. consumers.
Venezuela has an estimated 303 billion barrels of proven reserves of crude oil, which equals about 17% of the world’s supply, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
That amount is the most anywhere, but Venezuela’s nationalization of its oil and gas industry led to years of neglect and greatly reduced its daily output from 3.5 million barrels per day in the 1990s to about 800,000 per day now, according to the Kpler energy consulting firm.
For Venezuela to meet a 3 million barrels-per-day target, energy firms would have to invest more than $180 billion over the next 14 years, analysts with Rystad Energy said.
Such an investment level has U.S. oil and gas executives publicly expressing skepticism, although they do acknowledge the president’s proposal is an enticing offer.
Trump said a decision on the matter should be reached very soon, if not on Friday.
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