Trump Says Oil Companies Pledge To Spend $100b In Venezuela

President Donald Trump said Thursday that the world’s largest oil companies had pledged to spend $100 billion to fulfill his promise of reviving Venezuela’s flagging oil sector, even as the White House scrambled to expand a Friday meeting with oil executives because of skepticism from the top oil majors.

“They are going to go in. They are going to rebuild the whole oil infrastructure. They are going to spend at least $100 billion,” Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity.

Trump’s remarks come ahead of a White House meeting Friday with a group of oil executives that Trump called “the biggest oil people in the world” during the Fox News interview. The “top 14” oil companies would be in attendance, he said.

A wide range of companies have expressed interest in investing in Venezuela, but the leading oil majors with experience working in the South American nation with massive oil reserves remain skeptical about returning because of uncertainty about its stability, POLITICO reported Thursday.

That hesitancy from the big firms has prompted the White House to expand the list of companies on the invite list, according to a person familiar with the planning who was granted anonymity to discuss the meeting.

“The White House is moving down their list of oil and gas companies to call because the larger companies just aren’t interested,” the person said.

The meeting is set for 2:30 p.m. Friday.

Trump also said in the Hannity interview that the U.S. would continue selling Venezuela’s crude for an extended period, echoing comments made by Energy Secretary Chris Wright on Wednesday.

“We’re taking billions and billions of dollars worth of oil, it’ll be hundreds of billions of dollars, it’ll be trillions of dollars,” he said. “We’re going to be there until we straighten out the country.”

Trump said the impact of the move would be to “lower oil prices all over the world, which is great for everybody.”

While energy affordability has recently emerged as an administration priority, lower crude prices — which are already sitting near five-year lows — may make oil companies even more hesitant to spend on a risky play in Venezuela.

Ben Lefebvre contributed to this report.