Trump wants Venezuela’s oil money – but it must be difficult

Technical, financial and political obstacles that can delay (years) any significant increase in production.

The USA and Venezuela will manage the South American country in the near future and Donald Trump does not hide: a priority is oil.

It’s in Venezuela which are the largest reserves of oil in the world (although with poorly maintained infrastructure in recent years, which is why it does not produce what it could produce).

This Monday, the first day on the stock market after the attack, US oil companies rose: ConocoPhillips shares rose 5.9%, Chevron 5% and Exxon Mobil 2.3%.

It’s a raise. But nothing extraordinary.

“As everyone knows, the oil business in Venezuela has been a failure, a total failure for a long period of time. They were extracting almost nothing compared to what they could be extracting”, commented the US president on the day of the attack.

But your bet on “make money” with Venezuelan oil — and in attracting North American companies to exploit the country’s reserves on a large scale — faces obstacles technical, financial and political that can delay for years any significant increase in production, according to experts cited in .

According to Trump’s plan, the idea involves placing Venezuela under a management aligned with Washington and relaunching the oil industry with strong participation from major US oil companies.

Trump stated that North American companies (and he counts on them) would invest “billions of dollars” to repair “very damaged” infrastructure and generate revenue for the country.

The context, however, is degradation prolongation of Venezuelan productive capacity. Around two decades of underinvestment — following the exit of multinationals and the impact of economic sanctions — have left the sector with outdated infrastructure, limiting the ability to tap into the vast reserves of the Orinoco Belt.

But analysts emphasize that a possible lifting of restrictions alone will not solve the structural problem. Venezuelan crude is abundant, but complex to extract, requiring profound modernization of equipment, logistics and processing capacity.

O return, warn, it tends to be this.

Even in a very favorable scenario, only within a 5 to 7 years it would be possible to observe an increase in production sufficient to offset the necessary investment. And he warns of the risk of internal resistance if a political transition is perceived as North American dominance.

Regime changes in oil-rich countries – Iraq and Libya – did not guarantee energy benefits for the USA. The pattern may repeat itself.

A dimension of the financial effort It’s another brake. Adding half a million barrels per day to production would require about $10 billion and take approximately two years. It will be a difficult scenario for investors to accept.

In addition to costs, doubts persist about security, political stability and legal framework.

So far, no major North American oil company has committed publicly with the plans.

In fact, adds the , US oil companies are hesitating: invest billions in Venezuela? Not soon.