US President Donald Trump held talks with senior oil executives on Friday (local time), pushing them to consider investments in Venezuela’s oil sector following the capture of President Nicolas Maduro. While Trump presented the country as newly secure and open for business, industry leaders responded cautiously, with one major executive saying Venezuela remains “uninvestable” without deep reforms.
Speaking at the White House, Trump said his administration would take charge of deciding which companies are allowed to operate in Venezuela, sidelining Caracas from the process. He argued that foreign firms had previously operated without adequate protections under Maduro and claimed the situation had now fundamentally changed.
“We're going to be making the decision as to which oil companies are going to go in... (we're) going to cut a deal with the companies,” Trump said. “But now you have total security. It's a whole different Venezuela.”
Trump added that oil companies would “deal with us directly,” signalling that Washington would manage access to Venezuela’s oil resources and exclude the country itself from negotiations.
However, ExxonMobil chief executive Darren Woods raised serious doubts about returning to the country, citing the company’s history of asset seizures.
“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,” Woods said. “If we look at the legal and commercial constructs and frameworks in place today in Venezuela -- today, it's uninvestable.”
The meeting came days after US forces seized Maduro, an action Trump has openly linked to Venezuela’s oil wealth. He said discussions with executives would centre on rapidly restoring the country’s deteriorated oil infrastructure and increasing output by millions of barrels per day.
Those attending included Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Energy Secretary Chris Wright, along with executives from Chevron, ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, Halliburton, Valero, Marathon, Shell, Trafigura, Vitol Americas and Repsol.
A ConocoPhillips spokesman said chief executive Ryan Lance valued the talks around “preparing Venezuela to be investment ready.”
After the meeting, Trump said participants had “sort of formed a deal,” though he did not provide details. He claimed companies were ready to invest “at least 100 Billion Dollars” in the country.
Analysts told AFP that the plan to revive Venezuela’s oil industry faces major obstacles. They said the size of the country’s reserves does not guarantee quick or profitable production, pointing to ageing infrastructure, political risks, costly heavy crude extraction and growing investor caution as the world moves away from fossil fuels.
“There's lots of talk about the size of the reserves -- 300 billion barrels of proved reserves -- but what's often missing from the conversation is how realistic it is for those to be economically extracted,” said Rich Collett-White, an energy analyst at Carbon Tracker.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who has previously said the US would control Venezuela’s oil industry “indefinitely,” acknowledged after the talks that rebuilding the sector would “take time.”
Meanwhile, Venezuela’s interim President Delcy Rodriguez said her government remained in control of the country, while the state oil company said it was holding negotiations with Washington.
Chevron is currently the only US firm licensed to operate in Venezuela. ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips exited the country in 2007 after rejecting demands from then-president Hugo Chavez to give the state majority control.
Trump also said in a social media post that he had cancelled a second round of strikes on Venezuela, citing what he described as “cooperation” from the country.
Venezuela has been under US sanctions since 2019 and holds around one-fifth of the world’s oil reserves. Despite this, it accounted for only about one percent of global crude production in 2024, according to OPEC, after years of underinvestment, sanctions and embargoes.
Trump sees Venezuela’s oil wealth as a potential boost to his efforts to further bring down fuel prices in the United States.