President Donald Trump says American Big Oil “want to go in so badly” into Venezuela and spend billions of dollars, but the reality is U.S. oil producers are hesitant, and it will take many years and many tens of billions of dollars to rebuild Venezuela’s decimated oil sector after the U.S forcibly removed and arrested leader Nicolás Maduro during a string of attacks on Jan. 3.
More than doubling Venezuela’s current oil production likely would take until 2030 and cost about $110 billion, said research firm Rystad Energy, arguing that bringing Venezuela—home to the world’s largest known oil reserves—back to its previous highs would take even longer. Venezuela’s current oil flows of roughly 900,000 barrels daily are about one-third of its volumes at the turn of the century thanks to mismanagement, labor strikes, sanctions, and financial woes.
“We’re not waving a magic wand here and, all of a sudden, more oil starts flowing out of Venezuela,” said Dan Pickering, founder and chief investment officer for Pickering Energy Partners consulting and research firm.
“You’re not going to bully Exxon [Mobil] and Chevron into spending a bunch of money in a risky spot,” Pickering said. “Trump says, ‘Drill, baby, drill,” and the industry didn’t listen to it. They’re not going to blindly deploy capital because the U.S. government says they should.”
