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.
When you account for inflation, oil prices today are in line with oil prices in the early 2000s. The price is too low, and the risk is too high for massive infrastructure spending that would extract more oil from Venezuela to be worth it.
Possibly, green energy technologies are now on a trajectory to overtake fossil fuels altogether - and they are already a factor in driving the price of fossil fuels (and therefore the profitability of many wells and mines) down substantially. If that happens, the long term value of Venezuela’s oil reserves, without suitable infrastructure already built for extraction, could be close to zero.
In line with small government ideals, the best thing to do is let companies decide whether and how much to invest, but that won’t be a headline worth showing off. So Trump is trying to make $100B happen, and believes that that (alone) will restore the Venezuelan economy to the way it was.
Trump doesn’t give a rat’s ass about restoring the Venezuelan economy. He’s an extortionist and a robber, not a caring person.
I really think this all comes down to a belief that Trump and many Americans hold, that oil is irreplaceable. They have convinced themselves, or have been convinced by others, that civilizations can’t exist without oil, and fossil fuels more broadly. Because of this belief, they’re betting hard on oil and gas. They want to take control of as much of the world’s remaining oil reserves as possible, both to secure oil for ourselves but also to restrict access to adversaries, like China.
But this belief is wrong. Civilizations can exist without fossil fuels, or at least with very minimal fossil fuel use, especially for energy. Fossil fuels are very inefficient and nonrenewable, in addition to being highly polluting. Renewables, like solar and wind, are much more efficient, especially for electricity generation. To generate electricity with fossil fuels, you have to extract the material from the ground, refine it, transport it, then burn it to boil water to generate steam to turn a turbine to generate the electricity. There are a lot of steps there, and a lot of the energy is lost in the process. With solar and wind, electricity is generated at the source. It’s true that solar panels and wind turbines are not very efficient at turning the wind and sunlight into electricity, but once the electricity is generated, all you have to do is transmit it to where it is either stored or used. Some energy is lost in transmission, but that’s true of electricity generated from fossil fuels, too. Renewables are simply more efficient. And, as the name implies, they are renewable. The sun will continue to shine and the wind will continue to blow for a very long time.
So as the world wakes up this realization, the world will continue to transition away from fossil fuels and toward renewables. That will reduce the demand for fossil fuels. The oil companies know this, that’s why they’re not in any great hurry to go and spend billions of dollars to significantly increase oil production. If they dramatically increase oil production, but the overall demand for oil doesn’t also increase significantly, the price for their product will fall. They don’t want to sell their product for less money, because that will reduce their profits. Lowering the price of oil sounds great to consumers of the product, who want lower gas and diesel prices, but the companies selling it don’t want that. Companies want to sell their product for the highest price possible, so they can maximize their profit.
The US is betting on a fossil fuel future, but we’re going to lose that bet. We’ve convinced ourselves, or have been convinced, that oil especially is irreplaceable and that renewables/electrification are a scam. We’re wrong. An electrified world powered primarily by renewables is the future. The longer we continue down this misguided path, the further behind the rest of the world we will fall.
Whaaaaaaaat? Dragging the dirtiest type of oil out of the ground from a country still resisting invasion isn’t going to be cost effective?
The gist wasn’t that he didn’t want to invest. It was that he can’t invest until Trump “fixes” problems with the country. Like its leadership and laws, etc.
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.
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.
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
The oil execs are saying it’s “uninvestable” precisely because they know how incompetent Trump is.
I figured it would take a few months before the incompetence would be plain as day and ruin everything, not just one week.
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.
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.
“Who knew oil could be so complicated?!” - Orange Pirate
Orange Pedo-pirate
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?
Companies have usually avoided morally dubious actions in worlds spotlight, because it deters investors.
Not sure if anyone wants to touch Trumps fresh smelly turd… at least directly and visibly.
They also adjustment in the business of throwing away money on PR nightmares…
The math doesn’t math here. Oil barrel prices are very low, so low they’d be investing billions to lose money operating them
No corporation in their right mind is going invest the kind of money into anything involving Trump.
Why would they? It’s a win-win. They either get significant tax payer money invested on their behalf, or the oil stays off market keeping their prices high.
He’ll sell it to Russia and keep the money
Prices aren’t even that high, crude oil’s price has been on a steady downward March since the high in 2022
But taking Venezuelan oil offline might help bring global prices up, which would help Russia, which doesn’t turn a profit unless prices are high.
Russia also needs Oil to sell which is becoming hard between Ukraine hitting Russian facilities in Russia and now we have confirmation the US is not exempting the Shadow Fleet from having Russian ties
This is exactly it, it’s a shakedown and Trump and the party of fiscal responsibility will see to it that yet more corporations get hundreds of billions in government largess. But boy, they sure extracted that 1 bil from PBS, so I guess they’re on point.
So he lied about having oil companies on board with all this. I think this is perhaps better as originally it seemed like he went around Congress and conspired with oil companies to invade Venezuela.
Who knows anymore though. This could just be oil companies covering their ass in case there was some truth to them having foreknowledge of the invasion.
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.
Exxon is just holding out for more taxpayer money as a sweetener.
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!
