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   Miguel Afonso Caetano (remixtures@tldr.nettime.org)'s status on Thursday, 08-Jan-2026 06:42:31 JST Miguel Afonso Caetano

   in reply to

   "The United States’ oil industry appears wary of President Donald Trump’s repeated pledges that companies are going to spend billions of dollars upgrading decrepit Venezuelan oil infrastructure following the capture of Nicolás Maduro.

   The companies themselves have stayed largely silent since Saturday, when Trump promised that the American oil industry would “go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country.”

   None has provided on-the-record statements about their plans beyond Chevron, which said it was focused on protecting its assets in the country. And the American Petroleum Institute, the leading industry association for American oil and gas companies, has not met with the Trump administration about this issue.

   Rather, oil analysts have made clear that American and multinational oil giants don’t have an economic incentive to pony up investments in Venezuela, despite it being home to the largest oil reserves in the world.

   Unless the Trump administration can address the serious safety issues, fear of regime instability, and longstanding legal concerns, the president’s pledge to “take the oil” remains a giant question mark.

   “I really don’t know, who are the players that win from this?” said Ed Hirs, an energy markets analyst and professor at the University of Houston. “It’s not obvious, that’s for sure.”"

   https://www.notus.org/energy/trump-pledge-us-oil-investment-venezuela-industry-silent

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     Miguel Afonso Caetano (remixtures@tldr.nettime.org)'s status on Thursday, 08-Jan-2026 06:42:32 JST Miguel Afonso Caetano

     "President Donald Trump’s Cabinet officials are scheduling their first formal calls with oil company CEOs to press them to revive Venezuela’s flagging oil production, four people familiar with the conversations told POLITICO.

     Calls that Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum are planning with chief executives represent some of the first official outreach that the administration has made to the U.S. companies after months of informal discussions with people in the sector, these people said — days after President Donald Trump told reporters that “our very large United States oil companies” will “spend billions of dollars” in Venezuela.

     However, the companies’ executives remain wary of entering a socialist-ruled country that was plunged into political upheaval after U.S. forces took strongman Nicolás Maduro into custody over the weekend, following decades of neglect in its nationalized oil fields, according to market analysts and industry officials.

     Industry officials are also discussing what types of incentives would be needed to get them to return to the country, according to two industry officials familiar with the plans who were granted anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. Those could include having the U.S. government signing contracts guaranteeing payment and security or forming public-private joint ventures.

     Even if they don’t yet have fully formed ideas for what would get them to invest in Venezuela, Trump’s insistence is difficult to ignore, said one former administration agency head who was granted anonymity to discuss the evolving matters."

     https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/05/trump-venezuela-oil-fields-00710893

     #USA #Trump #Venezuela #Oil #BigOil #FossilFuels

     Steve's Place repeated this.