Donald Trump has asked for at least $100bn (£75bn) in oil industry spending for Venezuela, but received a lukewarm response at the White House as one executive warned the South American country was currently “uninvestable”.
Bosses of the biggest US oil firms who attended the meeting acknowledged that Venezuela, sitting on vast energy reserves, represented an enticing opportunity.
But they said significant changes would be needed to make the region an attractive investment. No major financial commitments were immediately forthcoming.
That just about sums up this administration, doesn’t it?
Pedopresident needs a diversion, invades a country and murders some civilians, then needs to beg oil execs who never asked nor wanted any of this and now have to deal with his shit
You’d almost start feeling bad for the oil execs. Almost, but not.
They know that Trump is just going to keep the money, and have the US government pay for it all.
Also, it’s one thing to support him, it’s not even so bad to give him some money now and then, but he is demanding an enormous commitment, and they know that about the only thing you can trust a MAGA government to do is royally fuck it up.
They also see the writing on the wall, MAGA’s days are numbered, they will be undone by their own virtuosic incompetence. Short term investment for quick gains is one thing, but long term investment in MAGA is a very bad idea.
must we pull his finger? I think already there’s enough shit coming out of him
It would be very funny and well deserved if they invested on his pressure and in a few years Venezuela just nationalises everything again.
bro did not text the signal group chat about his Venezuela plans before doing it damn
He actually did, he just didn’t wait to hear back that it was a terrible idea.
Have people started falling out of windows yet in the USA, like in Russia?
Whaaaaaaaat? Dragging the dirtiest type of oil out of the ground from a country still resisting invasion isn’t going to be cost effective?
So when he was on air force one and said that he’d spoken to the oil companies before the invasion. That was obviously a lie.
Is brain really is mush isn’t it.
He is but a puppet working on behalf of the oligarchy anywhere.
More if a gelatinous goo, somewhere between the consistency of loose slime and snot.
He did, in his head.
This podcast episode explains very well Exxon’s logic: https://pca.st/episode/d7084179-677a-4c82-ac90-c53cf28110c4
I never thought I would be on an oil company’s side in a discussion in my life.
Here’s the podcast episode description:
When people think of oil rich nations their mind generally goes to Saudi Arabia, Iraq and the US.
But according to international statistics, the country with the largest oil reserves is Venezuela, with 300 billion barrels worth.
At their peak they produced over 3.5 million barrels of the stuff per day. However, due to lack of investment, sanctions and mismanagement that peak is long gone.
Following their military intervention, the US administration claims they can get Venezuela’s oil production up and running at full capacity within 18 months.
But can they, and why is it that estimates for other countries oil reserves have fluctuated but Venezuela’s has stayed at 300 billion barrels for over two decades?
Who knew the guy who bankrupted a casino despite his daddy giving him millions to run it was bad at business?
Cheap fuel for his fanatics wanting the “good old days”.
He’s so bad at business that he doesn’t realise that companies won’t want to oversaturate the market and lower their margins. This is a concept of 12-year-old should be able to understand.
They should just sell at a loss and make it up on the volume, duh!
Sure, invest $100bn into an unstable country chasing a dying technology at the behest of a corrupt regime. Even for oil companies, Venezuela is too hot to touch.
Not to mention there’s a solid chance the next president will basically dedicate their career to undoing Trump’s BS, so there’s no guarantee you’ll get more than a few years of revenue.
the next president will basically dedicate their career to undoing Trump’s BS
And don’t forget half the time Trump undoes his own purported industrial policy.
With the tariffs he was so inconsistent and capricious, that nobody could rely on having an edge over foreign competition long term and so nobody would dare to invest in manufacturing in the USA. If he felt like it he just cut them off from their essential foreign inputs too. Not to mention how he threatened pulling back the CHIPS Act subsidies from Intel, or how he raided Hyundai.
A month from now:
I’m working on this horrible Venezuela situation that BIDEN left me with. Such a waste of American resources but I’m going to pull that back to make America great again.
Even if Trump hangs around as a dictator there’s still no point investing in Venezuela. It’s not as if there is even a global oil shortage so why would you want to build more infrastructure.
Trump is looking at fighting a war in Venezuela, Greenland and at home. How could anybody possibly think this regime is ever going to be anything near stable?
I’ve played enough Battlefield to know that a war in a oil field is nothing at short of spectacular.
If we have another election at all
Holy crap, did you invent this idea? I’ve never heard anyone say anything like this before.
Holy crap, did you invent sarcasm? I’ve never heard anybody say anything like this before.
Judging from the anger over ICE and anti-american administration if Trump tries to stop the election there will be riots and strikes.
I lost count of the many “if x happens we’ll act” excuses…
I have yet to see any evidence that Trump doing anything would cause riots and strikes. The American people are too pacified to defend themselves.
We’ve already had a few riots.
Technically we’ve also had Jan 6th, but I know that’s not what you mean.
You think Trump is immortal?
It’s nice to be hopeful. I’m not holding my breath though.
“now is a time for healing so we are going to hold no one accountable and in a few years when the fascist are back we can do this again”
It goes beyond that. Venezuela’s oil is heavy crude(if I understood correctly) which is difficult to process and requires specialized refineries in which US oil companies have not invested in.
EDIT: See comments below for corrections and more context.
A few months ago Trumpist billionaire Paul Singer bought Citgo, the former U.S.-based arm of Venezuela’s state-run oil company. Citgo owns three Gulf Coast refineries custom-built to process Venezuelan crude, refineries that have suffered from the U.S. embargo on imports of that crude. If Trump lifts that embargo, Singer will receive a huge windfall. But this windfall will have nothing to do with reviving Venezuelan production.
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/the-emperors-new-oil-wealth
Top notch information. Thanks.
It’s largely the same as Canadian and Mexican oil, so the infrastructure is very much in place.
It gives Trump an opening to pressure/annex Canada and Mexico, if Venezuela can make up the difference (which they can’t, yet).
It’s true that the infrastructure is already in place but it is important to understand that it is not simple infrastructure, and with a few exceptions, it is already pretty much fully utilized by Canadian and Mexican heavy crude/bitumen so it’s not like they can just double their capacity and start processing Venezuela too. You’re right about giving an opening to pressure Canada/Mexico though.
But it’s questionable if there’s really much upside for the US on the financial side. The opportunity to pressure is definitely there, but more pressure isn’t going to get blood out of a stone. Venezuelan oil will still have costs associated with it, and Canadian and Mexican oil is already really cheap.
The oil itself may be essentially free the way they’re stealing it with military force, but It’s not going to be cheap to build up Venezuela’s production infrastructure and it’s not going to be cheap to transport the oil stateside, and both Mexico and Canada already have all that infrastructure in place too, and already give a huge discount to the US since they have nowhere else to affordably sell or refine their oil as they have effectively no indigenous refining capacity for heavy crude and few other export options. During a few of the oil price plummets around Covid, Canadian oil (Western Canadian Select) was actually selling for negative prices, Canada was paying the US to take it off their hands and refine it for them. With global oil prices already trending relatively low, it’s going to be hard for oil from Venezuela to realistically compete with situations like that.
The most believable explanation that I’ve heard is that this is not really about directly stealing Venezuela’s oil reserves as much as it is about denying it to Russia and China, and maybe securing them in case of some future conflict. And that, I think, makes an awful lot of sense geopolitically as distasteful as I personally find the whole affair.
So: very specialized, expensive equipment in a small number of locations. What could go wrong?
While I’m not saying our oil dependency is good, calling it a dying technology is a bit silly. Even electric cars have lots of oil in them, nevermind the phone this is being typed from or my carpets or any other number of daily items. I do wonder if some of the unrest around the world these days is partially out of a fear that theres only so much oil…
An article i read states that with China and India fully investing into EV technologies, we could see oil demand peak in 2030 and:
“The tragedy is that we’re fighting over barrels that look huge on spreadsheets but shrink rapidly when confronted with physics, economics and time,” said Guy Prince, the head of energy supply research at the thinktank.
While the US is a net exporter of oil too.
Yeah, this is why every article that mentions Venezuelas huge oil reserves needs to also mention it is the costliest/ lowest margin oil too. Not all oil reserves are the same, the Saudis being able to pull a barrel out for $15 and sell it for $80 is a way different position then Venezuela pulling a barrel out for $60 and selling it for $70.
It is probably just part of the media manufacturing consent for regime change: “look how resource rich Venezuela is and how poor the people are, it must be because the evil Maduro regime” completely ignoring sanctions. Yeah mismanagement is part of the reason Venezuela is doing poorly but even if they were run perfectly with no corruption they still wouldn’t be living like the Saudis.
Yep. Canada’s tar sands are similar. Low grade tar that can be sold for cheap or upgraded for profit. Either way though even without counting labour standards and wages it costs twice as much to pull it out of the ground and we’ll sell it for half as much
So basically, it looks like he committed an international crime for oil and then won’t even get the oil. No one should be surprised, I guess. Incompetence is the only constant.
I’m starting to see how he managed to bankrupt the casino. It’s because he won’t stop committing pointless crimes that don’t in fact benefit him in any way.
The oil execs are saying it’s “uninvestable” precisely because they know how incompetent Trump is.
This actually sounds more like they want American troops to turn Venezuela into not-Venezuela… THEN they would feel safe investing.
Trump puts troops in Venezuela.
Oil execs: ya know, it’s mighty difficult to ensure security using only boats, it’d be better if we were in control all the way from the US via land.
“Who knew oil could be so complicated?!” - Orange Pirate
Orange Pedo-pirate
Bailout time… Trump will give them the money to invest and make them whole from previous losses
You know damn well big oil put him up to this.
It’s smoke and mirrors
Trump: anyone want to buy some stereos? They fell of a truck.
Oil companies: ehh….
