President Donald Trump has not been shy about sharing one of his motivations for the nighttime raid that captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on Jan. 3: oil.
The South American nation sits on the largest proven oil reserves in the world, but after decades of economic upheaval and more recently, U.S. sanctions and a naval blockade, little of it is actually sold on the global market.
“The oil business in Venezuela has been a bust, a total bust, for a long period of time,” Trump said Saturday. “We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country.”
Reuters reported Tuesday morning that the Trump administration is meeting with U.S. oil companies later this week to discuss their interest in providing the years of work and upward of $120 billion in investment experts estimate will be needed to boost crude oil production and exports from Venezuela.
The United States is the world’s leading producer of oil, and Texas leads the country’s production, with most of the state’s drilling in West Texas’ Permian Basin. So what does the sudden U.S. effort to drill Venezuelan oil mean for the Texas economy and its oil industry?
Not much, for now.
“The Permian has been the best place … to do business for years and we had a surrounding infrastructure that made that attractive,” said Todd Staples, president of the Texas Oil and Gas Association.
Getting U.S. companies to produce Venezuelan oil is going to require “a massive infusion of capital and that has to be acquired from willing investors,” Staples said. “Considering the circumstances globally … that tells me it’s going to be years in the making.”
U.S. and Texas oil companies have largely been silent regarding Trump’s insistence that they would fund the rebirth of Venezuela’s oil industry.
RELATED: U.S. government’s capture of Venezuelan president reverberates across Houston area
Chevron, headquartered in Houston, is the only U.S. company still operating in Venezuela after former President Hugo Chávez in 2007 nationalized assets belonging to U.S. and other Western companies. The company has seen its share price rise in the aftermath of the U.S. military operation that brought Maduro and his wife to New York, where they face federal charges related to drug smuggling and weapons violations.
The company declined to speculate on future investments in the Latin American nation.
“Chevron remains focused on the safety and wellbeing of our employees, as well as the integrity of our assets,” a Chevron spokesperson wrote in a statement. “We continue to operate in full compliance with all relevant laws and regulations.”
Lack of investment hurt Venezuelan oil production
Chevron and Exxon Mobil, based in Spring, are…
Read More: Trump says the U.S. will fix Venezuela’s oil industry. Texas experts say
