U.S. pushes to tap Venezuelan oil after capture of Maduro, but industry balks

After U.S. troops captured Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, the Trump administration has pressed to secure Venezuelan oil, urging a rapid rebuild of the country’s oil industry at a White House meeting with energy executives and beginning to sell 50 million barrels that had been trapped, my colleague Anatoly Kurmanaev reported.

Energy chiefs responded coolly: Darren Woods, head of Exxon Mobil, called Venezuela “uninvestable,” while Harold Hamm acknowledged that Venezuela has “its challenges,” according to reporting from the White House meeting. The administration frames the effort as part of a broader drive for “energy dominance,” but my colleague Anton Troianovski wrote that those ambitions have “run headlong into reality.” Practical barriers include the need for large, slow upfront investments to make Venezuelan fields profitable, Peter Coy wrote; low oil prices and a possible global oversupply reduce incentives to invest, Anton wrote; and a history of political turmoil and past nationalizations helps explain why executives view the country as risky.

Venezuela also remains home to paramilitary groups, Colombian guerrillas and gangs, factors that make the environment unattractive to companies. Some Venezuelans oppose selling oil to the United States: Maria Abi-Habib reported that many who embraced “Chavismo” favor using oil wealth to resist U.S.

Key Topics

World, Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, Exxon Mobil, Darren Woods, Harold Hamm