Posted on 01/03/2026 2:57:47 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
The White House has told companies they must rebuild Venezuela's crude-pumping infrastructure if they want compensation for assets seized by Caracas.
American oil companies have long hoped to recover the assets that Venezuela’s authoritarian regime ripped from them decades ago.
Now the Trump administration is offering to help them achieve that aim — with one major condition.
Administration officials have told oil executives in recent weeks that if they want compensation for their rigs, pipelines and other seized property, then they must be prepared to go back into Venezuela now and invest heavily in reviving its shattered petroleum industry, two people familiar with the administration’s outreach told POLITICO on Saturday. The outlook for Venezuela’s shattered oil infrastructure is one of the major questions following the U.S. military action that captured leader Nicolás Maduro.
But people in the industry said the administration’s message has left them still leery about the difficulty of rebuilding decayed oil fields in a country where it’s not even clear who will lead the country for the foreseeable future.
“They’re saying, ‘you gotta go in if you want to play and get reimbursed,’” said one industry official familiar with the conversations.
The offer has been on the table for the last 10 days, the person said. “But the infrastructure currently there is so dilapidated that no one at these companies can adequately assess what is needed to make it operable.”
President Donald Trump suggested in a televised address Saturday morning that he fully expects U.S. oil companies to pour big money into Venezuela.
“We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure and start making money for the country,” Trump said as he celebrated Maduro’s...
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
BullBLEEPico
“...start making money for the country...”
Which country is Trump referring to, Venezuela or the U.S.?
hows the oil getting pumped onto ships today?
“...start making money for the country...”
Which country is Trump referring to, Venezuela or the U.S.?
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
both
Yes.
No reason it cannot be both.
Sure doesn’t seem too “private” now.
Very low output compared to what it was prior to the commies
Venezuela...IMHO...
Both nations. As I am sure he will invoke a tariff on the oil and its results after he pays off Vhevron, who owned most of the refineries.
Don't know about the others. Standard Oil? BP? Shell?

Well, the media just tipped its hand. The media are now likely to replay their old favorite and call what is happening in Venezuela "a war for oil" like they did to Jorge Bush(2000-2008) about Iraq.
Oil companies being careful. That oil is heavy, hard to crack, the USA is about the only place that can. So, it’s costly to produce.
What’s private? He was indicted as a criminal 20 years ago. The oil is an afterthought, and the results of doing what the SCOTUS has allowed, using federal law enforcement, are being used through cooperation with the DOJ.... As usual, the Useless Nothing UN did nothing about the indictment.
Would be nice to see Venezuela returned to prosperity. My dad traveled there a lot with Pan Am in the 70s-80s. Had lots of stories about Caracas.
Am I remembering right?? Venezuela shut down all our oil companies...
They confiscated and made them state run. Still used our equipment.
The oil refineries in La are already breaking down Venezuelan crude, which is thicker than stand oil/ I say give them 1 week, and the pumps will be filling Chevron Oil-owned or leased tankers in 3-4 months the pump oprice will go down even moreso, after they pay what it cost us for all the planes and equipment used to enforcee the 20 year old indictment I notice zero saidd about the wife and sun who were also arrested in the DOJ indictment that POTUS Trump put in place 20 years ago.
Wonder if this has anything to do with the shutdowns of oil in California
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.