What the Big Oil executives told Trump about investing in Venezuela
... “We’ve had our assets seized there twice, and so you can imagine to re-enter a third time would require some pretty significant changes from what we’ve historically seen here,” Woods told Trump at the White House. “If we look at the legal and commercial constructs and frameworks in place today in Venezuela today, it’s uninvestable.” ...
ConocoPhillips CEO Ryan Lance congratulated Trump on ousting former President Nicolás Maduro. He said the banking sector will need to help restructure Venezuela’s debt and provide billions of dollars in financing for the restore [sic] the country’s infrastructure. ... Trump told the Conoco CEO that the U.S. government is not looking at recovering the assets the company lost during the 2007 nationalization.
“We’re not going to look at what people lost in the past, because that was their fault,” Trump said. “That was a different president. You’re going to make a lot of money, but we’re not going to go back.” ...
Vice Chairman Mark Nelson said Chevron has a way forward to rapidly ramp up its production, which currently stands at about 240,000 barrels per day.
“We have a path forward here very shortly to be able to increase our liftings from those joint ventures 100% essentially effective immediately,” Nelson told Trump. “We are also able to increase our production within our own disciplined investment schemes by about 50% just in the next 18 to 24 months.” ...
