12 hours agoShareSaveNatalie ShermanBusiness reporterShareSaveUS President Donald Trump has asked for at least $100bn (£75bn) in oil industry spending for Venezuela, but received a lukewarm response at the White House as one executive warned the South American country was currently “uninvestable”.Bosses of the biggest US oil firms who attended the meeting acknowledged that Venezuela, sitting on vast energy reserves, represented an enticing opportunity.But they said significant changes would be needed to make the region an attractive investment. No major financial commitments were immediately forthcoming.Trump has said he will unleash the South American nation’s oil after US forces seized its leader Nicolas Maduro in a 3 January raid on its capital.”One of the things the United States gets out of this will be even lower energy prices,” Trump said in Friday’s meeting at the White House.But the oil bosses present expressed caution.Exxon’s chief executive Darren Woods said: “We have had our assets seized there twice and so you can imagine to re-enter a third time would require some pretty significant changes from what we’ve historically seen and what is currently the state.” “Today it’s uninvestable.”Venezuela has had a complicated relationship with international oil firms since oil was discovered in its territory more than 100 years ago. Chevron is the last remaining major American oil firm still operating in the country. A handful of companies from other countries, including Spain’s Repsol and Italy’s Eni, both of which were represented at the White House meeting, are also active.Trump said his administration would decide which firms would be allowed to operate. “You’re dealing with us directly. You’re not dealing with Venezuela at all. We don’t want you to deal with Venezuela,” he said. The White House has said it is working to “selectively” roll back US sanctions that have restricted sales of Venezuelan oil. Officials say they have been coordinating with interim authorities in the country, which is currently led by Maduro’s former second-in-command, Vice-President Delcy Rodríguez.But they have also made clear they intend to exert control over the sales, as a way to maintain leverage over Rodríguez’s government. The US this week has seized several oil tankers carrying sanctioned crude. American officials have said they are working to set up a sales process, which would deposit money raised into US-controlled accounts.”We are open for business,” Trump said. On Friday, Trump signed an executive order that seeks to prohibit US courts from seizing revenue that the US collects from Venezuelan oil and holds in American Treasury accounts.Any court attempt to access those funds would interfere with US foreign relations and international goodwill, the executive order states.”President Trump is preventing the seizure of Venezuelan oil revenue that could undermine critical US efforts to ensure economic and political stability in Venezuela,” the White House wrote in a fact sheet about the order. Venezuela’s oil production has been hit in recent decades by disinvestment and mi …
