Exxon Mobil CEO Darren Woods said Friday the company needs to deploy a technical team to Venezuela to assess the condition of the country's deteriorated oil infrastructure, signaling early interest in a potential return following the capture of Venezuela's longtime strongman.
Woods spoke after a White House meeting with President Donald Trump and executives from 13 other oil companies.
He said "there's an opportunity in Venezuela with all the resources" following the Jan. 3 capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, by U.S. forces and their return to the U.S. to face federal drug charges.
Woods' remarks aired live on Newsmax and the Newsmax2 free online streaming platform.
"First and foremost, obviously, is the interest that we have in Venezuela," Woods said. "The way I would position that, one of the reasons why we see many of the industry players here is we're in a depletion business for a product that is in great demand and will be in demand for many, many, many decades to come.
"And as a depletion business, the biggest challenge we have is finding resources.
"There's an opportunity in Venezuela with all the resources there.
"We don't have that challenge of finding, we have the challenge of developing those resources. So, I think it's in the best interest of these companies and frankly, society as a whole, for the industry to be interested in understanding what the opportunity here represents."
Woods cautioned, given that "we've had our assets seized" twice in Venezuela and to enter a third time "would require some pretty significant changes from what we've historically seen here and what is currently the state."
"If we look at the legal and commercial constructs and frameworks in place today in Venezuela, it's uninvestable," Woods said. "And so, significant changes have to be made to those commercial frameworks.
"The legal system, there has to be durable investment protections, and there has to be a change to the hydrocarbon laws in the country.
"We're confident that with this administration and President Trump working hand-in-hand with the Venezuelan government, that those changes can be put in place."
Woods said Exxon Mobil could operate in the short term while broader legal and regulatory issues are addressed.
"We haven't been in the country for almost 20 years," he said. "We think it's absolutely critical in the short term that we get a technical team in place to assess the current state of the industry and the assets, understand what would be involved to help the people of Venezuela get production back on the market.
"With the invitation of the Venezuelan government and with the appropriate security guarantees, we are ready to put a team on the ground there.
"We also have an integrated set of capabilities, from production to refining to trading, and I think we can be of assistance to the Venezuelan crude to market and realizing a market price to help."
Earlier, Trump announced that the oil companies had agreed to spend $100 billion to rebuild Venezuela's oil infrastructure and said Caracas has agreed to allow the U.S. to "immediately" begin refining and selling up to 50 million barrels of crude oil.
Trump asked Woods how long it would take Exxon Mobil to get started.
"The first step is [the] technical team," Woods said. "As I talked with [Energy] Secretary [Chris] Wright earlier this week, we started from the beginning to put the team together so that if and when it was needed, we could hit the ground almost immediately.
"So, we can hit the ground within the next couple of weeks, start the assessment. And then from there we need to understand that's what we want.
"We want speed and quality. That's what we want."
Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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