US Energy Secretary Chris Wright emerged from a lengthy meeting at the White House with oil company executives with no sign of any major agreement from the companies to invest billions of dollars in new oil infrastructure in the country.
Asked if the oil companies had made any concrete commitments, Wright said CNN-it that there was "tremendous interest", but did not confirm that any agreement had been reached.
Wright said Chevron, the last American company operating in Venezuela, has told federal officials that it sees a "path to increase its production by 50 percent in the next 18 to 24 months," but without committing financially to it.
Earlier during the meeting, US President Donald Trump declared that oil companies would invest "at least $100 billion of their own money" to build and develop oil infrastructure in Venezuela.
Wright said that amount of money would be what is needed to grow the country's oil industry over the next decade, if Venezuela "is peaceful and becomes a more legally functional state, with a better operating environment."
Otherwise, Venezuela has proven oil reserves of around 300 - 303 billion barrels, which places it as the largest oil reserves in the world - around 17 percent of global reserves.
In monetary value, if calculated solely based on current oil prices (around $57-$60 per barrel), these reserves could reach around $17-$18 trillion or even more, depending on market prices. /Telegraph/
