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US energy secretary Chris Wright said that Washington “wants to see a flood of investment” come into Venezuela after meeting with the country’s interim president Delcy Rodríguez in Caracas, even as he insisted the US would not provide the guarantees oil executives have demanded.
“We’re massively changing the viability of commercial business on the ground in Venezuela, and American interest in it is just overwhelming,” Wright told reporters during a roundtable event following his meeting with Rodríguez on Wednesday afternoon.
However, Wright, the most senior US official to visit Venezuela since US forces captured authoritarian leader Nicolás Maduro on January 3, said Washington would not provide security or financial guarantees for US companies in the South American country.
US companies have expressed scepticism about getting involved in Venezuela, with ExxonMobil chief executive Darren Woods saying in a televised meeting with President Donald Trump last month that the country was “uninvestable”.
“I believe we’re going to see Venezuela go from a very high-risk nation to do commerce in . . . and businesses on their own risk-reward evaluation will respond accordingly,” said Wright, a former oilfield services executive at Liberty Energy.
Venezuela boasts the world’s largest proven oil reserves, but its relations with the US have soured dramatically since the late revolutionary socialist Hugo Chávez assumed the presidency in 1999 and established close ties with US adversaries, including Russia, China, Cuba and Iran.
Speaking about Chinese business interests in Venezuela, which include investments in the energy sector, Wright said: “China does a lot of deals in countries where they’re not mutually beneficial commercial deals.”
“I think with US help and US partnership, we want to stop those kinds of deals,” he added. “But legitimate deals of legitimate Chinese businesses . . . we treat those as legitimate things.”
During Chávez’s tenure, ending with his death from cancer in 2013, Venezuela expropriated assets belonging to US oil companies, including ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips, while installing political and military allies at PDVSA, the state oil company.
Upon taking the presidency Maduro oversaw an economic collapse and humanitarian crisis, with hyperinflation surging and millions fleeing abroad. During Trump’s first term the White House levied sanctions on PDVSA. Maduro is regarded by the US and many of its allies to have stolen re-election in 2024.
Since Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores were captured, Washington has begun rolling back restrictions, including on Tuesday issuing a licence that allows oilfield services contractors to bring equipment into Venezuela. Chevron already had a sanctions exemption licence, making it the only US oil major currently operating in the country.
“Washington is working seven days a week to issue licences” that would allow companies to operate in Venezuela, and “we want to set the Venezuelan people and economy free”, Wright said in remarks given alongside Rodríguez at the Miraflores presidential palace.
However, hours later he told reporters that “there’s no specific calendar right now” for lifting sanctions.
Rodríguez, a life-long socialist who served as Maduro’s vice-president before receiving the Trump administration’s backing to lead business-friendly reforms, said that “through diplomacy, we will overcome our differences”.
Her government pushed through a new hydrocarbons law late last month that weakens the state’s control over the sector, reduces the tax burden on companies and allows for international arbitration of disputes.
Wright said the reform would promote investment, though “it should go further . . . that would be a bigger win for Venezuela and the world”.
Asked by the FT if she would soon visit Washington as relations between the two countries thaw, Rodríguez said: “I have a lot of work to do here.”
Additional reporting by Ana Rodríguez Brazón in Caracas
