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American oil executives have spent weeks protesting that spending their own assets to revitalize Venezuela’s oil industry is too costly. Estimates of capital needs for some existing oil fields range from $10 billion to $20 billion, while developing new fields could take up to $100 billion over a decade, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.
That expense is so out of the question, said Darren Woods, chief executive of the nearly $550 billion ExxonMobil Corp., that it makes Venezuela “uninvestable,” he told Trump at a meeting with several oil majors, including Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and Shell. It was a description multiple news outlets noted at the time without including Woods’s caveat that his assessment could change if the “commercial frameworks” and legal system were significantly altered, according to a transcript of his prepared remarks. Because it is currently uninvestable, he said, there “has to be durable investment protections, and there has to be a change to the hydrocarbon laws in the country.”
“We’re confident that with this administration and President Trump working hand in hand with the Venezuelan government that those changes can be put in place,” Woods went on to say.
In other words, “Does Big Oil want to go into Venezuela? The answer is yes, if we guarantee the profits,” said Lukas Ross, deputy director of climate and energy at Friends of the Earth Action (FOE).
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