It is another thing to overthrow the leader of a dictatorial nation. It is one thing to reconstruct it into a petrostate that can match energy-producing giants on a toe-to-toe basis.
Nicolas Maduro, a dictator in Venezuela, was captured and ripped off by the U.S more than a month ago. However, that unfathomable and fatal U.S. military intervention appeared to be a far-off flashback at three days’ sightseeing in the land of the interim President, Delcy Rodriguez, an old deputy of Maduro.
The more difficult part is what follows: transforming the change of regime into an operating oil economy – and demonstrating that Venezuela can speedily resume as a valuable oil producer under the watch of the U.S.
Wright has since bragged about future sales of the Venezuelan crude, which will occur, all under U.S. watch. In another interview on Tuesday, he said that Venezuela’s oil sales have already passed the billion mark and that he estimates that the volume will increase to 5 billion in the coming few months to enrich a poor society.
“It is a win-win and a change of a nation without an American soldier on the ground, actually, and without an American taxpayer on the ground. It is off the box, radical Trump diplomacy,” said Wright.
He later that day followed it up with another prediction. During the International Energy Administration conference each year, Wright claimed that Venezuela could increase oil output by several hundred thousand barrels per day or about 30 per cent to 40 per cent, as he presented it to Bloomberg.
At present, Venezuela is yielding approximately one million barrels per day -or roughly the same as North Dakota’s daily production.
“Label it the sell, baby, sell chapter of the risky gamble by President Donald Trump in Venezuela.” It is part of what Wright wrote last week of an attempt to make the Americas great again that resembles dashing a contract on the other party at the point of a sword.
Eric Smith, the associate director of the Tulane University Energy Institute, said there will be a contractual situation. “We will certainly reserve some of the royalties to help Venezuela, but they will go into an escrow account and will be disbursed as long as they are playing with the Americans.”
The economic environment of Venezuela has shifted, but analysts are unlikely to have moved at the pace of such adjustment that would lure U.S. oil giants into reestablishing a large presence by year-end. The lawmakers of Venezuela passed a resolution, the hydrocarbon reform, which liberalised the state’s power in the oil industry. Mainly, it does so through giving oil-and-gas companies operational control in their ventures.
Nevertheless, numerous obstacles in the way of the Trump administration’s reinstating Venezuela as a powerful petrostate can still exist. Anas Alhajji, a managing director at the Dallas-based energy outlook advisors, had noted that “energy market trading houses dealing in Venezuelan crude were unable to sell fresh volumes.”
In a social media post, he said that this “sudden influx of extra-heavy oil is challenging to absorb in the U.S. Gulf Coast refiners.” He further stated that “fifty per cent of the Venezuelan crude sales were not being sold to customers as of last week.”
The Treasury Department has just given the green light to the various European oil and gas companies to resume their investment projects in Venezuela. The initial group of companies to have such licenses was BP -0.55%, Shell $SHEL +1.86%, Repsol in Spain, and ENI in Italy.
The only company in the U.S. that was not on the licenses was Chevron $CVX -0.60%. When other companies, such as ExxonMobil $XOM -0.13% and ConocoPhillips, were packing their bags and scampering twenty years ago due to expropriated equipment, Chevron remained there.
ExxonMobil does not seem to be in a hurry to reverse the process. In early January, ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods infamously termed Venezuela as being uninvestable under the present conditions.
When he said, at the time, that ExxonMobil would be happy to dispatch a team of specialists to collect facts on the ground, there was no indication that they would be sent shortly.
“Regarding the team I had volunteered for due to the difficulties… We continue to do so, and in fact, we said it on our Q4 2025 earnings call last month,” ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods replied. A request for the time when the team would leave was not responded to by the company.
