Venezuelan oil renaissance is not a given after US capture Maduro

Speaking to Tagesschau, Goldthau highlighted that reserves in the ground do not necessarily translate into produced barrels. Trump’s ambitions for the Venezuelan oil sector are ambitious if not unrealistic. For Chevron, ExxonMobil or ConocoPhillips, barriers to entry are significant, including a difficult investment environment, a history in nationalization, and political turmoil, all creating uncertainty. Even if produced, it may not the oil the world will need going forward, against the backdrop of high production costs and structurally declining global demand, he told the Wirtschaftspodcast of Deutsche Welle. Featuring on Bayern2 Welt am Morgen, he also questioned whether oil indeed plays the central role in the US intervention and pointed to China’s investment activity in the region, which the US ostensibly seek to curtail. What is more, Germany and Europa would not necessarily profit from additional supply from Venezuela, his message was for readers of Frankfurter Rundschau.