

Can Trump make Venezuela an oil giant again?
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. “No one was paying any attention to Venezuelan oil two weeks ago," a longtime oilman said to me the other day, “but now everyone is." Donald Trump made that happen. Following the dramatic seizure of dictator Nicolás Maduro by American forces on Jan.
3, the president declared that the U.S. would take control of the country’s oil industry, with Venezuela turning over 30 to 50 million barrels for the U.S. to sell, the proceeds being used “to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States!" But that’s just the beginning.
Trump has made clear that he wants U.S. oil companies to return to Venezuela in a big way. There’s certainly plenty of oil to be produced there.
Venezuela holds the largest reserves in the world, more than Saudi Arabia and the U.S., and for decades was one of the stars of the oil world. But recent years have brought a crushing descent. Venezuela has been producing well under a million barrels a day—less than North Dakota—and accounts for less than 1% of world oil production.
Estimates range widely for what it would cost to bring back the industry. One reasonable guess is $20 billion to boost Venezuela’s output to 1.5 million barrels a day from the 870,000 barrels it produced in November. To get back to the 3.4 million barrels a day of peak production at the end of the 1990s could cost $100 billion or even more, including new facilities, infrastructure and environmental remediation.
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