Wary of Investing in Venezuela, Big Oil Heads to the White House

The amounts of money, time and political uncertainty trouble executives at large Western oil companies, who plan to meet with President Trump on Friday.

President Trump’s sweeping claims last weekend that U.S. energy companies would “spend billions of dollars” and “take back the oil” in Venezuela blindsided American executives, who were far from ready to commit to an investment binge in the South American country.

In the wake of the president’s remarks, administration officials have rushed to assess companies’ appetite for pumping more of Venezuela’s oil — and what it would take for them to follow through.

Executives from many of those firms have been invited to the White House on Friday for an audience with Mr. Trump. They will have to strike a delicate balance of appeasing the president, who frequently expresses fondness for their industry, without making expensive pledges that could take decades to pan out and risk making them the face of a legally questionable endeavor by the White House.

Ahead of the meeting, Mr. Trump suggested on social media on Friday that big oil companies would invest “at least” $100 billion.

While some smaller operators are eager for a slice of Venezuela’s vast oil reserves, thought to be the world’s largest, oil giants like Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips that have deep pockets, vast expertise and, crucially, experience in that country have privately expressed reservations about committing the kind of money it would take to meaningfully boost Venezuelan oil production, according to six people with knowledge of their thinking.

Some oil companies have discussed the possibility of seeking some form of financial guarantee from the federal government before agreeing to establish or expand production in Venezuela, two of the people said.

Political uncertainty in the United States and Venezuela is another major obstacle, as oil investments often are measured in decades, and companies would need to be confident that any deal would last long enough for them to make a decent profit.

That hurdle is especially high in this case. Venezuela has in the past seized assets that foreign companies valued in the tens of billions of dollars. Exxon and ConocoPhillips, which were among those firms, are still pursuing substantial claims against Venezuela’s government.

“It’s not that oil companies don’t operate in risky places. It is the inability to assess the risk at this moment,” said Luisa Palacios, a former chairwoman of Citgo Petroleum, a U.S. oil refining company owned by Venezuela’s state oil company. “This is not an environment where you can make any kind of decisions.”

An exception is Chevron, which stayed in Venezuela long after many Western oil companies decamped and is now the country’s largest private oil producer. The company’s vice chairman, Mark Nelson, is expected to attend the Friday meeting with Mr. Trump.

Trump administration officials offered a bare-bones plan this week to effectively assume control of selling Venezuela’s oil indefinitely. As a first step, Mr. Trump has said, Venezuela would soon hand over 30 million to 50 million barrels of oil to the United States, as much as two months’ worth of production.

The president and his aides have also said the United States would control the proceeds from sales of Venezuela’s oil and release them to the country to help stabilize and revive its economy. Venezuela’s government has not confirmed many of these details, though the state-owned oil company released a statement on Wednesday saying negotiations were underway.

Chris Wright, the energy secretary, this week talked up oil companies’ interest in doing business in Venezuela.

“My phone is blowing up with people saying: ‘Hey, I’ve got interest. How can I do this?’” he told Fox Business on Thursday. But, Mr. Wright acknowledged, “large-scale field developments” would most likely need to involve oil giants like Exxon, Chevron or ConocoPhillips.

Energy executives have not raised the prospect of financial guarantees directly with Mr. Wright, said Ben Dietderich, an Energy Department spokesman.

ConocoPhillips declined to comment on emailed questions beyond saying its chief executive, Ryan Lance, planned to attend Friday’s meeting. Exxon did not respond to requests for comment.

Oil executives are generally reluctant to criticize Mr. Trump or his plans, and many of them would be interested in pumping oil in Venezuela under the right circumstances. But there is a big gap between being interested and making binding commitments to invest there. Large oil projects can cost many billions of dollars and employ thousands of people. Just doing all the geological studies, planning and site work can take several years.

“There’s a lot of potential, but you need free elections and a major change in the legal framework,” said Scott Sheffield, a former oil executive who sold his company, Pioneer Natural Resources, to Exxon in 2024 for around $60 billion.

That said, the administration has gotten some traction in recent days.

Shell, based in London, has sought to position itself as a potential player in Venezuela, where it has maintained good relations with the government, two people familiar with the company’s thinking said.

Shell already produces natural gas in neighboring Trinidad and Tobago and has been interested in expanding into Venezuela. The company is also in the business of buying and selling oil, natural gas and other energy commodities produced by other companies, and it has signaled to the Trump administration in recent days that it would be open to striking a trading deal with Venezuela, one of the people said.

A Shell spokeswoman declined to comment on Venezuela.

Regardless of whether oil and gas producers rush back into Venezuela, U.S. refining companies are poised to benefit from the Trump administration’s efforts to redirect the country’s oil to the United States. That is because many of the facilities that transform oil into gasoline, diesel and jet fuel were configured years ago to process the kind of heavy oil that Venezuela produces.

Indeed, Marathon Petroleum, one of the largest American refining companies, said it planned to bid for some of the oil that Mr. Trump had said would soon be headed to the United States. The chief executive of the company, Maryann Mannen, is expected to be at the White House meeting on Friday.

Reporting was contributed by Kenneth P. Vogel, Anatoly Kurmanaev, Anton Troianovski and Lauren Hirsch.

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