Trump Mulls Barring Exxon After It Calls Venezuela “Uninvestable”

By Staff, Agencies

US President Donald Trump said he might bar ExxonMobil from Venezuela after its CEO labeled the country ‘uninvestable’ during a White House meeting.”

Darren Woods told the US president that Venezuela would need to change its laws before it could be an attractive investment opportunity, during the high-profile meeting on Friday with at least 17 other oil executives.

Trump had urged the group to spend $100bn to revitalize Venezuela’s oil industry in a meeting less than a week after US forces captured and removed Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro from power in a brazen overnight raid.

Woods’ skeptical remarks quickly emerged as the dominant headline, undercutting the White House’s hopes of building momentum from its engagement with the world’s most prominent oil executives.

“I didn’t like Exxon’s response,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One on his way back to Washington on Sunday. “I’ll probably be inclined to keep Exxon out. I didn’t like their response. They’re playing too cute.”

Exxon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Exxon, ConocoPhillips and Chevron once led Venezuela’s oil partnerships with state company PDVSA, but after Hugo Chavez’s government nationalized the industry and Exxon and ConocoPhillips left and sued, Venezuela now owes them more than $13 billion from expropriation rulings.

Woods told Trump on Friday: “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.”

Exxon’s CEO said Venezuela is currently “uninvestable” and called for investment protections and hydrocarbons law reform before the company could consider returning.

ConocoPhillips’ CEO, Ryan Lance, told Trump that his company was the largest non-sovereign credit holder in Venezuela, and called for a restructuring of the debt and the country’s entire energy system, including PDVSA.

Trump said ConocoPhillips would get a lot of its money back, but the US would start with a clean slate. “We’re not going to look at what people lost in the past because that was their fault,” he said.

Trump said his administration would choose which companies can operate in Venezuela, insisting firms deal directly with the US government and not with Venezuela’s authorities. “You’re dealing with us directly… we don’t want you to deal with Venezuela,” he said.