Jan. 16 at 5:06 PM
$DJT $CVX $XOM Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump’s Venezuela pitch to oil executives to invest the vast sums required to revive the country’s flagging oil sector proved largely ineffectual. Exxon Mobil CEO Darren Woods offered the starkest assessment, calling the South American country “uninvestable” under its current commercial frameworks and hydrocarbon laws, while ConocoPhillips CEO Ryan Lance also gave Trump a reality check, informing him his company lost billions of dollars when it exited the country under the Chavez regime.
The serious descent of Venezuela's energy sector into the abyss began after Hugo Chávez's government nationalized the oil infrastructure and assets of ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips in 2007, after the companies refused to accept new terms that would give the Venezuelan state oil company, PDVSA, a majority share in their projects. The nationalization process was initiated in early 2007 through a presidential decree and new hydrocarbons law..
