When the United States dramatically captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro at the start of 2026, President Donald Trump wasted little time laying out an ambitious economic vision.
Standing before reporters in Washington, Trump pledged to “unleash” Venezuela’s vast oil reserves, calling on American energy giants to mobilize up to $100 billion in fresh investment to revive and expand production in the crisis-stricken South American state. He framed the moment as both a geopolitical victory and a commercial opportunity — a chance for US companies to secure long-term energy supplies while reshaping the regional balance of power.
But weeks after the announcement, the response from Big Oil has been tepid at best.
Executives at major firms have quietly signaled reluctance to plunge into Venezuela’s troubled petroleum sector. Exxon Mobil, one of the world’s largest publicly traded energy companies, went so far as to describe Venezuela as “uninvestible” in its current condition — a remark that reportedly drew a personal rebuke from Trump.
The clash highlights a deeper reality about the modern oil industry. Despite its reputation for daring exploration and frontier capitalism, 21st-century Big Oil is increasingly risk-averse. Its executives prefer predictable returns over geopolitical gambles. And that preference has profound implications not just for Venezuela, but for global energy politics and the green transition.
Trump’s appeal may have been rooted in a century-old image of oilmen as swashbuckling risk-takers — entrepreneurs willing to stake fortunes on uncertain geology and political instability. The popular imagination, immortalized in films like There Will Be Blood, often portrays oil executives as relentless figures driven by ambition and appetite for risk.
In the early 1900s, exploration companies operated in frontier conditions with limited data and minimal regulation. Today’s energy majors, by contrast, are complex multinational corporations accountable to institutional investors, pension funds, and sovereign wealth funds. Their business models revolve around managing volatility, not embracing it.
Shareholders now demand stable cash flow, disciplined capital expenditure, and predictable returns. The trauma of past oil price collapses — including the crash of 2014–2016 and the pandemic-driven shock of 2020 — has reinforced a conservative investment culture across the sector.
Venezuela, with its political instability, infrastructure decay, sanctions legacy, and legal uncertainties, does not fit easily into that model.
On paper, Venezuela possesses some of the largest proven oil reserves in the world, much of it concentrated in the Orinoco Belt. For decades, those reserves were seen as strategic assets in the global petroleum system.
Yet oil is not a uniform commodity.
Venezuela’s crude is predominantly heavy and extra-heavy, requiring specialized refining technology and significant upgrading before it can be converted into fuels or petrochemical feedstocks. Processing it efficiently demands advanced facilities and technical expertise often controlled by multinational service providers and refiners.
Over years of economic mismanagement, underinvestment, and political turmoil, Venezuela’s refining capacity deteriorated. Despite producing more crude oil than it consumes, the country has had to import refined fuels and petrochemicals to meet domestic needs — an irony that underscores the complexity of modern energy markets.
International oil service firms hold key intellectual property, engineering know-how, and processing technologies. Without their participation and sustained engagement, Venezuelan crude faces barriers in global refining systems optimized for other grades.
For US energy companies, entering Venezuela would mean not just drilling wells but rebuilding infrastructure, navigating regulatory shifts, and securing guarantees against future political upheaval.
If Venezuela represents uncertainty, US shale represents familiarity.
Over the past decade, the shale revolution transformed the United States into the world’s largest oil producer. Advances in hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling dramatically lowered production costs in major basins such as the Permian.
Shale operations offer several advantages that Venezuela cannot match. Projects can be scaled quickly. Wells have relatively short development timelines. Capital can be adjusted in response to price signals. Crucially, companies operate within a stable legal and regulatory environment.
For major firms, shale provides cost-efficient feedstock for domestic refineries and petrochemical complexes. It also aligns with investor demands for flexibility and rapid payback periods.
Against that backdrop, committing tens of billions of dollars to a politically fragile foreign oil sector appears far less attractive.
Even more telling than the industry’s preference for shale is its pivot toward petrochemicals.
As global efforts to decarbonize transportation gain momentum, demand growth for gasoline and diesel is expected to slow in many advanced economies. Electric vehicles are steadily increasing their market share, while efficiency standards tighten worldwide.
Oil companies have responded by shifting strategic emphasis toward plastics and chemical products — sectors projected to see sustained demand growth, particularly in Asia’s expanding manufacturing hubs.
Petrochemicals are used in packaging, construction materials, electronics, textiles, and countless consumer goods. For energy majors, they represent a pathway to monetize hydrocarbons even as transport fuel markets plateau.
Major investments in new petrochemical complexes across Asia reflect this calculation. These facilities convert oil and natural gas liquids into high-value polymers and specialty chemicals, often delivering higher margins than traditional refining.
Venezuela’s crude, while abundant, does not automatically align with this strategic pivot. Developing integrated petrochemical supply chains there would require enormous upfront investment and long-term policy stability — both in short supply.
The oil industry’s global power stems in part from the structure of its market.
Unlike many consumer goods sectors, oil production and refining are capital-intensive industries dominated by a relatively small number of multinational firms and state-owned companies. The primary “customers” for crude oil are nation-states and their economies.
Even countries rich in reserves often depend on international companies for technology, engineering expertise, and advanced refining capacity. This creates a form of structural dependence that shapes global energy relationships.
Venezuela was once firmly embedded in this international system. But as its domestic institutions weakened, its integration into the global refining and services network frayed.
The result is a paradox: vast reserves coexist with fuel shortages and import dependency.
This dynamic also explains why simply “unleashing” supply is not straightforward. Oil production is embedded in complex supply chains, technical standards, and financial systems. Political change alone cannot instantly restore those networks.
To entice companies into Venezuela, Washington would likely need to provide substantial guarantees — legal protections, insurance mechanisms, or even financial backstops.
Such state-sponsored arrangements shift risk from corporate balance sheets to taxpayers. While companies gain security, public funds absorb potential losses if projects falter due to renewed instability or market downturns.
Critics argue that deploying public guarantees to expand fossil fuel production contradicts climate commitments and diverts resources from clean energy investment.
Supporters counter that expanding supply could moderate global oil prices, strengthen US influence in Latin America, and weaken adversarial alliances.
The debate reflects broader tensions in energy policy: balancing short-term economic and geopolitical goals against long-term environmental imperatives.
Perhaps the most revealing aspect of the current moment is not Big Oil’s hesitation toward Venezuela, but its broader retreat from renewable investment.
In the early 2020s, several energy majors announced ambitious plans to expand into wind, solar, hydrogen, and electric vehicle charging infrastructure. Branding shifted to emphasize “energy transition” strategies.
Yet by 2025 and 2026, many companies scaled back those commitments, citing lower returns compared to traditional hydrocarbon projects. Shareholder pressure intensified as investors prioritized dividends and stock buybacks over uncertain green ventures.
At the same time, spending on petrochemical expansion increased. New plastic production capacity surged, even as environmental groups warned of rising emissions and plastic pollution.
The pattern suggests that oil companies are not inherently inclined to take bold risks in emerging sectors. Rather, they gravitate toward investments with established demand trajectories and clear profitability.
Trump’s call to “unleash” Venezuelan oil may reflect a misunderstanding of how modern energy corporations assess opportunity.
Risk in today’s oil industry is carefully quantified. Projects are evaluated through complex models that factor in price forecasts, regulatory scenarios, geopolitical stability, and capital costs.
Frontier ventures are undertaken only when returns compensate for uncertainty. In Venezuela’s case, the combination of heavy crude characteristics, infrastructure decay, and political volatility raises the hurdle rate.
Moreover, global oil demand projections are increasingly clouded by climate policies and technological shifts. Companies are wary of investing in long-lived assets that could become stranded if demand declines faster than expected.
From a corporate perspective, the safer bet lies in incremental expansion of known basins and downstream chemical integration — not large-scale reentry into a fragile state.
The standoff between Washington and Big Oil underscores a central policy dilemma.
Governments often assume that large energy firms can be mobilized to serve national objectives — whether expanding supply to lower prices or investing in renewables to cut emissions.
But corporate strategy is driven primarily by shareholder value. Unless regulatory frameworks or financial incentives align profit with policy goals, companies will prioritize stable returns over public ambitions.
If governments want cleaner energy systems, they may need to increase the costs of carbon-intensive production, limit new fossil infrastructure, and coordinate internationally to prevent regulatory arbitrage.
Such measures require supranational cooperation and political resolve — a far more complex undertaking than urging companies to drill more wells.
Venezuela’s future oil sector remains uncertain. If political stability improves and credible legal frameworks emerge, investment may eventually follow.
But even then, the structure of the global energy market has shifted.
The growth engines of Big Oil lie in shale and petrochemicals, not in high-risk geopolitical gambles. The industry’s evolution from wildcat exploration to financial discipline reflects deeper transformations in capital markets and environmental politics.
For Venezuela, unlocking reserves will require more than political change. It will demand rebuilding institutions, modernizing infrastructure, and integrating into a global system that prizes predictability.
For the United States, the episode reveals the limits of executive exhortation in shaping corporate behavior.
And for the global climate agenda, it highlights a sobering truth: the problem with oil companies is not excessive risk-taking, but insufficient willingness to invest in transformative change.
More cheap oil, petrochemicals, and plastics may deliver profits. Whether they deliver a sustainable future is another question entirely.
