How does taking the oil work?
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Anonymous
I believe those companies ended up getting significant money from international courts--some other venue than the ICC. |
Anonymous
Trump and republicans have stated Venezuela is in the US zone. This of Venezuela as a US colony. This means Trump can take the resources of any country in the zone without compensation. Republicans say the US has conquered Venezuela and everything in the country is now owned by the US. No compensation will be paid to Venezuela. The US just takes what it wants through companies connected(making payments to Trump and his cabinet) and no compensation or input from the locals. There will be no royalties or any payment for Venezuelan oil. Also no environmental rules. So lots of industrial pollution and dumping. This is similar to what the British and US did in Iran. Iran’s new democratic government wanted royalty payments from the British Petroleum. So the British called the newly democratically elected leadership in Iran socialist and communist. The US used the CIA to kill off the elected officials and imposed a dictator. PB did not have to pay royalties. |
Anonymous
No, and this is why it matters to the future of Venezuela. ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips decided to exit Venezuela when oil was nationalized and refused to accept new minority-stake terms. They sued Venezuela in international courts. While they won massive awards, actually getting the cash has been a decades-long struggle and they have never been fully compensated. Chevron did chose to remain in Venezuela as a minority partner with the state-owned PDVSA. So instead of getting a lump-sum legal settlement for seized assets, they have been allowed to continue operations under special a U.S. license. So Chevron has been able to export oil to the U.S. and use the proceeds to offset the debt Venezuela owes them from their joint ventures. Venezuela owes roughly $21 billion to a long list of creditors, including oil companies like ConocoPhillips, mining firms, and people who bought Venezuelan government bonds. Because the country has no cash and is under sanctions, creditors successfully argued that CITGO Petroleum (a U.S.-based oil refining giant) is the "alter ego" of the Venezuelan state. CITGO owns three primary refineries (in Louisiana, Texas, and Illinois) that together produce about 4% to 5% of all fuel in the United States. In late 2025 Amber Energy (an affiliate of the hedge fund Elliott Investment Management) was selected as the winning bidder. However, for years, the U.S. and the Venezuelan opposition (led recently by Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado) argued that CITGO must be saved to serve as the backbone of a post-Maduro economy. It was supposed to be a "Democratic Nest Egg". |
Anonymous
Which is why no energy company is touching Venezuela until there is a legal framework that protects them. It will take years and billions of dollars to modernise the Venezuelan oil industry. Trump is gone in 3 years. But the investment horizon is much longer than that. No one is dropping a dollar into Venezuela if their only guarantee is the presence of the US navy offshore. Those ships are gone the day a new administration is sworn in. |
Anonymous
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Trump will die some time in his third term. At which point the Venezuelan government will nationalize everything again.
This time the courts will not award the oil companies any compensation because the seizure of a country’s natural resources is against international law. Can reward illegal actions. Venezuela will sue any company that attaches itself to the Republican’s Viceroy or whatever they are calling it. The companies will have to pay a lot of compensation. |
Anonymous
Your fictional account is not what the courts have said. ConocoPhillips: Awarded approximately $10.7 billion total across different cases. This includes a major 2019 ruling for $8.7 billion plus interest. In January 2025, an arbitration committee dismissed Venezuela's final appeal to annul this award, leaving a remaining debt of about $8.37 billion. ExxonMobil: Originally sought up to $16.6 billion. In 2014, an international panel ordered Venezuela to pay $1.6 billion. Following various appeals and a 2023 resubmission, Exxon was awarded an additional $77 million. |
Anonymous
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This is why US oil companies and international oil companies will not go in to Venezuela. This guy is an ex oil ceo.
Why US oil will not go in to Venezuela. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ox71JCe3N8U Basically it will cost 100 billion and there is no guarantee you will be there in 3 years. Add in people could be shooting at you and you can get better returns elsewhere. |
Anonymous
Then this is a bad deal for taxpayers. Foot the bill for the military and then private citizens get to make business deals for the oil? |
Anonymous
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So will gas be going back down to $1.18/gal soon?
That will be so cool! |
Anonymous
US servicemen and National Guard will be sacrificed to protect the oil companies. |
Anonymous
We should not be investing overseas. We should be investing locally. The whole globalist idea of huge multi national companies with no alliance to a home country is absurd. Globalism is great for the investor class but bad for workers. |
Anonymous
It's not about the actual oil per se. This is about maintaining our control over resources in the region. Venezuela attempted to nationalize their oil and that meant American companies could no longer take the oil and sell if for profit. We are effectively asserting that the oil is our not theirs, which is kind of gross and imperialistic. We are fighting the precedent that would be set if the countries we dominate and exploit for resources start asserting ownership of their own resources and stop letting us take them and sell them back to everyone for profit. |
Anonymous
And everyone should think twice about sending their young people to fight a war to protect the profits of billionaires. We could simply refuse. |
Anonymous
Rubio says it's all legal the courts are on our side.....yes insert the sarcasm. |
Anonymous
My heart hurts for parents whose children just joined the military. This is getting sicker by the day. |