Energy executives strategize to try and preempt Trump demands on Venezuela

By Adam Cancryn, David Goldman, CNN

(CNN) — Top energy executives are weighing telling President Donald Trump that the industry can increase Venezuela’s oil output by hundreds of thousands of barrels per day over the coming months, people familiar with the preparations for Friday’s White House meeting told CNN.

The pledge would be aimed at setting a realistic initial goal for accelerating the nation’s output, while preempting demands by Trump for the companies to make massive new investments in rebuilding Venezuela’s energy infrastructure.

But the promise to hit that mark would come with a set of conditions: The US would first need to lift key sanctions that have suppressed Venezuela’s production, as well as provide some of the supplies necessary to move the nation’s heavier crude oil.

“A few hundred thousand barrels a day increase in a year or so, given very positive conditions above ground, is reasonable,” said one person familiar with the private industry discussions. “You could squeeze out some more oil if you have the sanctions approval to do it.”

The proposal the executives are discussing comes as they scramble to gameplan for Friday’s high-stakes meeting with Trump, where the president is widely expected to push oil companies to quickly return to Venezuela.

Trump has claimed repeatedly since authorizing the capture of Nicolás Maduro and taking charge of Venezuela’s oil sales that the industry is eager to put billions of dollars toward revitalizing the oil-rich country.

But major US oil companies have no plans to do so any time soon. Venezuela is still viewed as far too risky to re-enter in the wake of Maduro’s ouster, with major questions surrounding the nation’s political stability and the White House’s plans for “running” the country for the foreseeable future.

In a flurry of private discussions over the last several days, oil executives have sought to coordinate their approach to the White House meeting, fearing that Trump will press them to make on-the-spot commitments to pour money into Venezuela.

Some executives have suggested trying to sidestep the question by citing antitrust rules and other concerns about making financial decisions in front of competitors, the people familiar said. Yet they’ve also sought more measured commitments that the industry can make, in hopes of pleasing Trump and heading off the risk of a confrontation.

“It’s, how do we say, ‘Yes, but,’” the first person familiar with the discussions said, comparing the meeting to a game of dodgeball. “These guys are lined up and Trump’s going to start throwing balls at them. And they’re wondering how they’re going to duck.”

Executives from oil giants Chevron, Exxon and Conoco are among the more than a dozen attendees expected at the meeting, which could also include representatives from oil trading firms and other parts of the energy sector, two people familiar with the matter said. The invite list at one point featured as many as 19 executives, though the people familiar cautioned that it remained in flux.

In the run-up to the meeting, White House officials offered little sense of a firm agenda, or any specifics on how the administration planned to address the widespread security concerns that companies have cited as a chief barrier to re-entering the country.

Some in the industry have been encouraged by Energy Secretary Chris Wright’s recent rhetoric following a series of one-on-one meetings with oil executives. Wright has acknowledged in recent interviews that the US needs to do extensive work to entice companies to invest in Venezuela, while offering reassurance that the administration “won’t be twisting anyone’s arms” in the process.

Still, Trump may choose to take a far harsher approach. The president has already speculated that the US oil industry could get operations in Venezuela “up and running” by 18 months, while setting expectations that the industry will be enthusiastic to invest.

Energy officials and lobbyists largely poured cold water on that aggressive timeline. But they said that executives on Friday may instead tout the potential for ramping up Venezuela’s relatively paltry output through sanctions relief and other steps that would allow existing operators to increase capacity.

That could amount to a kind of “phase one” in the long process of restoring Venezuela’s oil operation to its pre-socialism production levels.

Before Hugo Chavez took power in 1999, Venezuela was producing more than 3 million barrels of oil per day. That fell to around 1 million barrels per day just before the US capture of Maduro. Restoring Venezuela’s output beyond 3 million barrels per day, industry experts agree, could take tens of billions of dollars a year and more than a decade of work.

But getting production back up to 1.5 million barrels by maximizing the country’s existing energy infrastructure should be possible with relatively minimal investment, said Luisa Palacios, the former Citgo chairwoman and current managing director of Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy.

That could be accomplished with a different kind of investment — small, independent oil companies that are privately funded and willing to take on some risk to potentially reap the rewards of Venezuela’s massive oil reserves.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent highlighted that prospect on Thursday, acknowledging that oil majors like Exxon and Conoco aren’t ready to dive headfirst back into Venezuela. But he insisted independent and smaller firms are eager to return.

“I can tell you that the independent oil companies and individuals — wildcatters — our phone is ringing off the hook,” Bessent said at a Q&A session at the Economic Club of Minnesota. “They want to get to Venezuela yesterday.”

Wright told CNBC on Wednesday that Chevron will be able to increase capacity with existing infrastructure as well.

“If you’re Exxon or Conoco and you have exited the country, you just need normal commercial business conditions, rule of law and some security to go back in. That will take some time,” Wright said. “On the other hand, you have got Chevron. They’re there. They have been there for over 100 years. They’re actually working in this regime. So, with them, how can we provide incremental tweaks or changes to allow their model to grow even more?”

A second phase — getting back to full production — would require significantly more investment, security guarantees, signs of long-term political stability, US government-backed financial pledges, debt repayments, minimized sanctions, a change in local oil laws and a host of other precursors before the likes of Exxon and Conoco return.

In the meantime, however, smaller industry players could support a lower-risk, lower-cost preliminary investment.

Private equity firms, which are willing to take on more risk than publicly traded oil majors, will probably be willing to pour some money into Venezuela, said Palacios. But they’ll probably be careful about where they invest, shunning new projects and aiming for oilfields that are already producing and have potential to ramp up their capacity.

“You now have a lot of private equity firms with a completely different risk profile to oil companies, so Venezuela may be a place where you have capital coming in,” Palacios said.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.

CNN’s Ella Nilsen contributed to this report.