Energy secretary says US won’t provide security for oil companies in Venezuela

Energy Secretary Chris Wright on Thursday said the United States will not provide on-the-ground security to oil companies operating in Venezuela as part of its efforts to revitalize the country’s energy industry. 

“We are not going to get involved in providing on the ground security for people in Venezuela,” Wright said during an interview with Bloomberg Television.

“Oil and gas companies operate all around the world in all different settings, they’re well versed in those challenges.”

Wright’s comments come as major oil companies have raised a litany of concerns about investing in the country, which has vast oil fields but also high rates of crime and deep corruption.

“We’ve had our assets seized there twice. And so, you can imagine to re‑enter a third time would require some pretty significant changes from what we’ve historically seen here and what is currently the state,” ExxonMobil’s CEO Darren Woods said during a White House meeting earlier this month.

After the Trump administration’s capture of Venezuelan regime leader Nicolas Maduro, President Trump has urged American oil companies to invest in the Latin American country. 

“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 during a press conference on Jan. 6.

Chevron is currently the only American oil company operating in Venezuela through joint operations with its state-run oil and gas company PDVSA under a special permit from the Treasury. 

U.S. companies had their assets seized in 2007 under Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, who forced ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips to exit the oil sector backed by Caracas.

Wright told Bloomberg the U.S. had already made Venezuela a safer place to operate, but conceded that changing laws to improve the investment environment would take time.

“There’s always different risk and reward situations in time, which is why the wildcatters will move first,” Wright said. “The bigger, longer-term, tens of million of dollars of investment, they’re going to wait until there’s more clarity in that environment.”

Wright said he plans to travel to Venezuela with oil executives soon to look at the oil infrastructure and meet with the acting President Delcy Rodríguez.

Trump has said the U.S. will “run everything” in regards to Venezuela’s oil industry, announcing an initial commitment by Rodríguez’s government 30 and 50 million barrels of oil, to be sold by the U.S. onto global markets, with revenue kept in a foreign bank and directed back to Caracas.