The operation to capture Venezuela’s now-ousted President Nicolás Maduro was in part a strategic economic move, as President Trump quickly made clear this weekend, to rebuild Venezuela’s oil industry and return what he says is “stolen American oil.” Trump claimed to have even consulted with oil companies “before and after” the Venezuelan leader’s capture.
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“We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country,” Trump said.
Trump has repeatedly claimed that oil companies are eager to invest in Venezuelan oil infrastructure if the U.S. lifts sanctions, telling reporters on Air Force One that oil companies “want to go in.”
“All of our oil companies are ready and willing to make big investments in Venezuela that will rebuild their oil infrastructure, which was destroyed by the illegitimate Maduro regime,” reiterated White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers.
These are big words. And ones that the president appears to be working hard to uphold. According to Reuters, oil industry executives claim that Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and ExxonMobil leaders have not yet had any conversations with the administration about Maduro, contradicting Trump’s statement that he had held meetings with “all” U.S. oil companies. On Tuesday it was reported that Trump aims to meet with U.S. oil executives later this week.
The question now becomes whether this is an opportunity the oil companies even want.
On Monday the markets reacted quickly and positively, with the S&P 500 energy index rising to its highest since March 2025; ExxonMobil rose 2.2% and Chevron jumped 5.1%. Oil prices also fell with Brent crude dropping 61 cents, or 1%, to $60.09 a barrel on Wednesday after Trump said Tuesday that Venezuela would be “turning over” 30 million to 50 million oil barrels to the U.S. Though that range may sound expansive, in 2023, the U.S. consumed an average of about 20.25 million barrels per day.
Experts, however, caution the situation is much more complicated than the president might imply, and oil stocks lost steam on Tuesday after their Monday rally, undoing some of the previous day’s gains. And even oil companies are being initially cautious.
Amrita Sen, founder and director of market intelligence at Energy Aspects, a global research group advising businesses on energy markets, tells TIME that questions around when Venezuela’s oil will flow may be answered in due time, but many things need to occur long before infrastructure is built back up.
“We’ve had comments from the U.S. administration saying that the U.S. companies would go in and spend billions of dollars, or hundreds of billions of dollars, but when you’re talking to the companies, that’s not what they are saying,” she says. “They’re extremely cautious, not in a rush to go back, because, again, they don’t know who they’re dealing with.”
Currently, Chevron is the only major U.S. firm still operating in Venezuela through joint ventures with state oil company PDVSA. Other U.S. companies like ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips do not have ventures in Venezuela, as sanctions remain in place.
Most of these companies have been tight-lipped in their response to Maduro’s capture and Trump’s claims. “Chevron remains focused on the safety and wellbeing of our employees, as well as the integrity of our assets. We continue to operate in full compliance with all relevant laws and regulations,” Bill Turenne, head of public policy communications at Chevron told TIME via email.
“ConocoPhillips is monitoring developments in Venezuela and their potential implications for global energy supply and stability,” a ConocoPhillips spokesperson said in an email. “It would be premature to speculate on any future business activities or investments.”
Companies operating refineries along the Gulf Coast, however, stand to receive a big boost if Venezuela’s oil industry does re-open, including Phillips 66 whose CEO said at a Goldman Sachs conference Tuesday that they have two Gulf coast refineries which can turn and process Venezuela crude oil as production ramps up.
One oil company, Continental Resources, has also publicly indicated its interest in working with the government in Venezuela. It is led by top Trump ally and tycoon Harold Hamm, who told the Financial Times that “with improved regulatory and governmental stability we would definitely consider future investment.” On the day of Trump’s inauguration, Hamm hosted a watch party that included fellow oil executives, as well as Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum.
Sen says that overall, though, many of the companies’ reluctance is for good reason. While the country boasts the world’s largest proven oil reserves with around 303 billion barrels of crude oil, it currently produces less than 1 million barrels of oil per day, or about 0.5% of global oil production—only half of which is exported out of South America.
Its energy infrastructure has been hampered by years of sanctions and mismanagement. Beyond the political uncertainty, this situation might prevent oil companies from investing. Sen says she cannot “stress enough how difficult it will be” to build production by even half a million barrels, let alone the levels Trump is promising.
“It needs gas processing. The damage is unbelievable that has happened over the years, and the brain drain is phenomenal as well,” Sen says. On top of this, Venezuela’s oil is extra-heavy oil, viscous and thick with a higher sulfur and carbon content than conventional crude, leading Trump to describe it as the “probably the dirtiest in the world.” As a result, the oil is more difficult and expensive to extract, as Sen notes, and it needs massive amounts of lighter oil to allow it to flow. “To raise production by half a million barrels per day takes two years and $10 billion, and if you were to go and increase production back to two and a half million barrels per day, it would take seven to 10 years and hundreds of billions of dollars.”
Marcos Falcone, a policy analyst focusing on Latin America at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, says that the swing in the market response is because, essentially, not much has changed.
“It’s not clear to me that markets are anticipating any huge changes in Venezuela. And I think there’s a good reason why that would be the case,” he tells TIME, noting that Delcy Rodríguez, who was sworn in as the nation’s interim president on Monday, served under Maduro and is still not a democratically elected leader.
“She’s a Chavista,” says Roxanna Vigil, international affairs fellow with the Committee on Foreign Relations. “She is going to be in charge of trying to hold together a very fragile coalition of regime insiders that include hardliners, military, moderates, like all sorts of different interests, and she doesn’t have a strong mandate.”
As Vigil puts it, the Trump Administration is “prioritizing rebuilding the oil sector over a political transition.” Rodríguez “was not elected to lead,” she continues. “So I see just a really high risk of things quickly spiraling out of control politically in Venezuela.” All of this political uncertainty might prevent the government from being able to tell investors with certainty where their money may be headed.
Yet, Rodríguez already has a reputation with oil companies, as the former oil minister under Maduro. With developed relationships in the oil sector, Rodríguez could easily be seen by Washington as a pragmatic member of Maduro’s circle. And though she has condemned Maduro’s capture as a “kidnapping,” she has since softened her defiance and said that the country is willing to work with Washington.