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Posted on 01/13/2026 8:39:16 AM PST by Miami Rebel
President Trump told reporters Sunday night that he was “inclined” to deny ExxonMobil any role in rebuilding Venezuela’s moribund oil industry after its CEO told him point-blank Friday that the South American country was “uninvestable” despite the recent capture of President Nicolas Maduro.
“I didn’t like Exxon’s response,” Trump said to reporters on Air Force One as he departed West Palm Beach, Florida. “They’re playing too cute.”
ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods made the blunt assessment during a White House meeting of petroleum executives whom Trump was trying to persuade to restart production in Venezuela after more than 25 years of left-wing authoritarian rule.
“If we look at the commercial constructs and frameworks in place today in Venezuela, today it’s uninvestable,” said Woods, who has led the world’s largest oil company since January 2017.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
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Profitability would require $80 bbl. oil. WTI is currently scraping along at around $60, and Venezuelan heavy-sour sells at a discount to that.
Additionally, investing there means political and safety risks.
It's a better service to its shareholders for a major integrated oil company to buy back its shares in the open market than to bet billions for an uncertain and long-term proposition.
The whole "drill, baby, drill" motto is based on the false reckoning that oil companies want to invest their equity in driving down the price of the product they sell. Venezuela is an extreme example of that illogic.
(For what it's worth, I have something like 40% of my portfolio in energy, and I've been a serious investor in the oilpatch for thirty years.)
Until there is a stable government that is not likely to steal all the invested assets as they did before, I cannot Blame Exxon for turning this down.
Trump seems too too willing to go along with the remnants of Maduro still in office, and make “a deal” with them, but the history of Venezuela, its oil and foreign oil companies, suggest Trump’s confidence in the status quo in Venezuela is misplaced.
He needs to land troops there to get Exxon to go there.
I’ve been in Fortune 500 C-suits, and I can say for sure: even before asking “what legal protections do we have when we send Venezuela $10 billion in investments?”
Their CEO will ask - “If we send 100 petroleum engineers to Venezuela tomorrow, who will guarantee their safety?”
That is a very rational business decision. As long as the existing Socialist framework government albeit without Maduro continues to maintain overall power in Venezuela, risking private capital in that setting is extremely high risk and foolish. In the US the socialist dominated enclaves ( LA, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, New York City, Philadelphia) are also experiencing a dearth of private investment for the same good reasons.
0 are also seeing for the same good reasons,
I wish my father were still alive, he used to play golf with the former head of Exxon-Mobile and would be able to give me the full low-down of what is really going on.
Exxon / Mobil got boned TWICE in Venezuela when they nationalized their assets.
The CEO has a fiduciary responsibility to XOM shareholders. Period.
Trump does not want to hear any opinions that are contrary to his. And he thinks he is always right.Therefore, he will be surrounded by yes men
suggest Trump’s confidence in the status quo in Venezuela is misplaced.
_______________
I think too!
Communist regimes are dictatures of small committees.
One person does not make that much difference.
So getting rid of Maduro (himself a replacement for Chavez) does not make too much difference.
Maduro structures seem to be still in charge, and so nothing really changed in Venezuela.
It's been said that a good lawyer knows the answer that he'll receive from the one being examined before he asks the question.
exxonmobile is absolutely %100 correct: Venezuela is totally uninvestable as long as the corrupt, kleptocratic, illegitimate government thugs and current military leadership are running the show ... no other transnational petro outfit will invest either ...
Very interesting. You don’t think the ExxonMobil guy might be angling for an advantage of some kind? Subsidy? Tax break?
Do you think Exxon will commit billions if it needs military escorts for its workers? If we’re not prepared to occupy the country in force for years, what’s to keep a new Venezuelan regime in 2 or 4 or 5 years from claiming that the US illegally seized Venezuelan assets and expropriating those assets? (Venezuela has done that to Exxon twice before!)
“he thinks he is always right.Therefore, he will be surrounded by yes men”
The beginning does not logically constitute the later.
He is more likely to surround himself with loyalist, but I have not seen evidence that he seeks only yes men.
This is a case where embracing the power of “and” is important, I think they likely are but also the argument about risk is valid and not to be dismissed.
I don’t think that there’s a subsidy or tax break big enough to lure them. I don’t own XOM (too bad for me: it’s hitting a new high today!), but if I did, I wouldn’t want my CEO committing to such an expensive and speculative bet.
Agree with your post. Venezuela is a total mess and a potential financial quagmire. There are better investment options available to XOM IMO.
Factors:
1) Do not believe narratives. Like the one that Venezuela’s people are desperate for the glory and shining light that US presence would bring. The barrios are the bulk of voters and the arrive of the US in their view would cement inequality and render them maybe worse off than now.
2) There is a perpetual presumption the Ven oil is all coming from the super heavy Orinoco belt. That is not their only oil fields. Back in their days of a few million barrels/day, that liquid was not coming from the super heavy sources. There were other fields. Which, like all oil fields, do go empty. Behold a solid reason why they lost production — even with Rosneft and Petrochina modernizing their process.
3) Exxon has the biggest chunk of the recent offshore Guyana discovery. It is much celebrated, but in keeping with the above, Exxon’s overall reserves are falling, even adding in Guyana. Their disinterest in Ven is not casual. They are a losing firm, selling a depleting product. This is not the sort of thing that induces wild risk taking of putting people on the ground in a country filled with resistance snipers.
He got rid of Maduro but the secret police are still operating unhindered. Oil companies are wise to stay out.
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