Trump administration sets meetings with oil companies on Venezuela

The administration of United States President Donald Trump is planning to meet with executives from US oil companies later this week to discuss boosting Venezuelan oil production after US forces abducted its leader, Nicolas Maduro, the Reuters news agency has reported, citing unnamed sources.

The meetings are crucial to the administration’s hopes of getting top US oil companies back into the South American nation after its government, nearly two decades ago, took control of US-led energy operations there, the Reuters news agency report said on Monday.

The three biggest US oil companies – Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips and Chevron – have not yet had any conversations with the Trump administration about Maduro’s ouster, according to four oil industry executives familiar with the matter, contradicting Trump’s statements over the weekend that he had already held meetings with “all” the US oil companies, both before and since Maduro was abducted.

“Nobody in those three companies has had conversations with the White House about operating in Venezuela, pre-removal or post-removal, to this point,” one of the sources said on Monday.

The upcoming meetings will be crucial to the administration’s hopes to boost crude oil production and exports from Venezuela, a former OPEC nation that sits atop the world’s largest reserves, and whose crude oil can be refined by specially designed US refineries. Achieving that goal will require years of work and billions of dollars of investment, analysts say.

It is unclear what executives will be attending the upcoming meetings, and whether oil companies will be attending individually or collectively.

The White House did not comment on the meetings, but said it believed the US oil industry was ready to flood into Venezuela.

“All of our oil companies are ready and willing to make big investments in Venezuela that will rebuild their oil infrastructure, which was destroyed by the illegitimate Maduro regime,” said White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers.

Exxon, Chevron and ConocoPhillips did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Reuters.

One oil industry executive told Reuters the companies would be reluctant to talk about potential Venezuela operations in group settings with the White House, citing antitrust concerns that limit collective discussions among competitors about investment plans, timing and production levels.