American oil companies will be able to get large-scale oil extraction up and running in Venezuela within less than a year and a half. This is what US President Donald Trump said in an interview with NBC News.
At the same time, he acknowledged that it will be expensive for companies to enter the Venezuelan oil industry, which is characterized by a lack of maintenance.
- I think we can do it in less time than that, but it will cost a lot of money, Donald Trump told NBC News about the 18-month time frame.
- Enormous sums of money will have to be spent, and the oil companies will spend the money, and then they will get it reimbursed by us or through revenues.
Venezuela has a fifth of the world's oil reserves, but the country only extracts 0.8 percent of the oil extracted globally.
This is due, among other things, to the fact that successive governments have neglected the maintenance of the infrastructure surrounding the oil industry, and that the industry has lacked international investment and been hit by foreign sanctions.
Several analysts have Reuters has pointed out that there are several challenges involved in entering the Venezuelan oil industry.
This is not only because the industry is worn out, but also because there is great uncertainty about how the political and security situation will develop in the country after the US has arrested President Nicolás Maduro. And in this light, it may seem extremely optimistic when Trump expects to get the oil industry up and running within 18 months.
Thomas O'Donnell, an energy and geopolitical advisor, expects it to take five to ten years. But this offer assumes that the United States manages to ensure a peaceful transition from the Maduro regime to a new government in the country.
- A failed political transition period that gives a sense of American dominance could lead to years of resistance, Thomas O'Donnell told Reuters.
Trump would not give NBC News a specific estimate of how much it would cost for American companies to repair and upgrade the oil industry in Venezuela.
However, CNN has previously reported that an update to the oil industry's infrastructure that can ensure production is back to full capacity will cost an estimated $58 billion, according to the media. That's equivalent to 370 billion kroner.
According to CNN, the state-owned Venezuelan gas and oil company PDVSA has stated that its pipelines have not been maintained for the past 50 years.
/ritzau/
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