Trump's Venezuela Meeting Is Shaping Up to Be a Who's Who of US Oil
(Bloomberg) --
Nearly 20 oil executives, including veteran wildcatter Harold Hamm, are slated to meet President Donald Trump and top officials at the White House Friday as the administration pushes them to rebuild Venezuela’s battered energy sector.
The scheduled lineup is a Who’s Who of American oil titans, with representatives from Chevron Corp., Exxon Mobil Corp., ConocoPhillips and other companies responding to Trump’s call to discuss potentially reviving Venezuela’s production, which has plummeted amid years of disrepair, fading investment and the exodus of foreign companies.
The executives attending were described by people familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because the discussions are private. Representatives of oil traders Vitol Group and Trafigura Group plan to attend the meeting, along with Spain’s Repsol SA, which owns a stake in a large Venezuelan oil field, refiners and at least one oilfield service firm, the people said. India’s Reliance has been invited, according to some of the people.
While Venezuela boasts the world’s largest oil reserves, many of its pipelines and other infrastructure are so badly damaged after years of neglect that fixing it all is apt to take years, prompting companies to approach the White House’s call to rebuild with caution. One analyst estimated the effort could cost up to $100 billion over the next decade, putting the timeline well beyond the end of Trump’s term.
“We’re going to meet with the biggest oil people in the world,” Trump said Thursday in a Fox News interview. “They’re going to rebuild the whole oil infrastructure. They’re going to spend at least $100 billion.”
In the short term, however, the administration’s plans to start selling Venezuelan crude that’s stuck in storage behind the US naval blockade is already impacting markets.
Vitol, which recently received a license from the US Treasury to sell Venezuelan oil, is already in talks with refiners to gauge their interest, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.
Trump has enjoyed strong support from the oil industry, which helped bankroll his reelection campaign. Some oil executives expected to join Friday’s meeting were part of a closed-door energy roundtable at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida in April 2024, when the then-presidential candidate scoffed at wind power, said he’d undo some environmental regulations and asked the group to raise $1 billion, according to people familiar with the exchange.
While energy executives are keen to express support for Trump’s goal of rebuilding Venezuela’s oil sector and its economy while benefitting the American people, they’re wary of heavily investing without guarantees of physical and financial security amid concerns about the stability of the country in the wake of former President Nicolás Maduro’s apprehension by US troops.
Exxon and ConocoPhillips previously operated there but left after their assets were nationalized by Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chávez, in the mid-2000s.
Friday’s meeting, which will include Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, will focus on the magnitude of what’s needed in Venezuela as well as what assurances oil companies want in order to feel comfortable operating in the country, the people said.
In the meantime, Wright said his phone is “blowing up” with interest from oil companies about Venezuela and has been talking to executives from Exxon, Chevron and ConocoPhillips since Maduro was apprehended.
“You are going to see Exxon and Conoco and dozens of other American firms looking to see how they can be involved,” Wright said Thursday on Fox Business.
Hamm, the co-founder of Continental Resources Inc., has been a top energy confidante for Trump, particularly during the president’s first term in office. Hamm’s also been one of Trump’s major oil industry donors, contributing both to his political operations and, recently, to the president’s ongoing construction of a White House ballroom.
International shale operator Bryan Sheffeld, another Trump supporter, said he plans to attend Friday’s meeting.
Wright on Wednesday disclosed plans for Washington to indefinitely control future sales of Venezuelan oil and hold the proceeds in US accounts. Trump said Venezuela would relinquish as much as 50 million barrels of its oil for the US to sell, valued at about $2.8 billion at current market prices.
Proceeds from the crude sales would benefit the US and the Venezuelan people, Trump said.
(Updates with Trump quote in fifth paragraph.)
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