War with…Venezuela?

[iPilot05]

Looking at the remarks ExxonMobil's CEO posted to their website, it doesn't seem like ExxonMobil is stating they will never work in Venezuela while Trump is president. It reads to me that as things are currently, they will not invest in Venezuela. Maybe that is them trying to stay on President Trump's good side, but I think it could be a frank assessment of the situation (and the omitted part is how likely Venezuela becoming investable is).

I do wonder how much ExxonMobil views the cooperation of the people in Venezuela as essential to investment (versus the Venezuelan government); I think it could be read either way and worry that the Trump Administration will see it as a green light to force Venezuela's government into that stance (and forcibly replace them to find a government who will if they do not) without considering the effects of doing so:

I mean I totally see Exxon's point. Even a GW Bush level of competency in leadership would have gone into Venezuela full force with an opposition party ready to take over (with assurances of cooperation with US oil companies) after a full decapitation strike. Whether that would really work or not? Eh... but I have a feeling Venezuela is not Afghanistan and there would not be nearly as much opposition to a very unpopular government being taken out.

What Trump did instead was unbelievably lazy from a military point of view. Maduro was bad news but he was merely the head of a large power apparatus that seems to be ticking along just fine. It was the regime change equivalent of hitting a wasp nest with a blow dart.

Nothing has really changed in Venezuela as far as Exxon is concerned. The same government is in place, the courts are still stacked, the infrastructure is still in shambles. Chevron can smile and nod along with Trump because they never left Venezuela, but to try to go in and basically rebuild from scratch? That dog won't hunt unless something actually changes.

 

[Coriolanus]

High risk, high return. There's a potential regime change and chances to access vast resources without having to compete for the rights in an auction. If the deal looks bad, they can pull out later. But essentially committing to not doing it before you see what is going to get proposed is usually not a good strategy. I can see how the CEO feels personally, but it's not his job to talk about his personal feelings.

I don't see any potential high returns in the future for Venezuelan crude. The breakeven point to extract the crude there is going to be a lot higher than how much a barrel of crude is selling right now. That's also not taking into account the infrastructure needed to start that extraction process will take a lot of money and time to put into place.

Oil companies are basically looking at a loss going into Venezuela. Why investment in a financial quagmire?

Also, another consideration to keep in mind was that Venezuela's proven reserves was 100 million barrels in 2007. The amount tripled to 300 million barrels because Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro said it was 300 million barrels. OPEC doesn't actually check claims of reserves. They accept the member state's reserve claims at face value.

 

[poke 532810]

Trump has shared a fake website screenshot listing him as “Acting President of Venezuela”. I used to pretend like that, but I grew out of it around the time I entered kindergarten.

 

[lovswr]

My God, is all of this; Venezuela, Greenland, whatever else, just a vanity project? If somebody gives him a picture of himself that says president of the world, will he just go away!

(It actually makes sense, in a Donald J Trump kind-of-way)

 

[concernUrsus]

My God, is all of this; Venezuela, Greenland, whatever else, just a vanity project? If somebody gives him a picture of himself that says president of the world, will he just go away!

(It actually makes sense, in a Donald J Trump kind-of-way)

He probably wants president of the multi-verse.

 

[Deleted member 28951]

Exxon have likely calculated that it is not in fact high return.

Venezuela's oil infrastructure is fucked, it's been mismanaged so badly that it needs massive refurbishment before it starts producing, and because it's heavy crude it's only profitable when global oil prices are high but oil prices are not high and won't be consistently so within the financial outlook of a modern day company (because too many alternative energy sources are coming online, even if oil goes into full on scarcity it will just mean more transition not prices to the moon).

Sure, companies sometimes go for high risk/high gain projects (startups have no choice, that's all they can do which is why most fail).

However large, established companies don't like complete crapshoots.
The kidnapping & bombings were done with zero planning or forethought about how how VZ would be governed going forward or who would do the governing, or whether there'll be any free courtesy-of-US-gov't security by US troops for the years it'll take to rebuild the heavy-industry infrastructure (which probably includes roads, pipelines, refineries...)
There's no way to gauge the probability of VZ having any kind of stable gov't even 1 year ahead, let alone 3 or 10. Or the cost of security.
Under those conditions, no big company will invest.

 

[Demento]

Also, another consideration to keep in mind was that Venezuela's proven reserves was 100 million barrels in 2007. The amount tripled to 300 million barrels because Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro said it was 300 million barrels. OPEC doesn't actually check claims of reserves. They accept the member state's reserve claims at face value.

The US Geological Survey agrees with the number. The oil deposit didn't change, what was considered to be economically recoverable changed. Same as Canada's estimated reserves suddenly jumped in the early 2000s as the tar sands became economically viable. It's driven by changes in technology and oil prices, not the whims of dictators.

 

[Technarch]

Not even American dictators?

 

[The Sheep Look Up]

My God, is all of this; Venezuela, Greenland, whatever else, just a vanity project?

There is no separating Donald Trump's very existence from a vanity project. He's a black hole, but a cartoon black hole that hungrily and insatiably grabs at everything it can.

 

[AverageDutchGuy]

Sure, companies sometimes go for high risk/high gain projects (startups have no choice, that's all they can do which is why most fail).

However large, established companies don't like complete crapshoots.
The kidnapping & bombings were done with zero planning or forethought about how how VZ would be governed going forward or who would do the governing, or whether there'll be any free courtesy-of-US-gov't security by US troops for the years it'll take to rebuild the heavy-industry infrastructure (which probably includes roads, pipelines, refineries...)
There's no way to gauge the probability of VZ having any kind of stable gov't even 1 year ahead, let alone 3 or 10. Or the cost of security.
Under those conditions, no big company will invest.

My guess is that companies like Exxon also realize that there is absolutely no guarantee of long term stability (in fact, quite the opposite) and the risk of losing billions on setting up the required infrastructure to do anything with the notoriously heavy Venezuelan crude is just not all that attractive relative to the modest returns. They'd probably need a decade or more to just recoup the losses of the initial investment.

 

[Zod]

He probably wants president of the multi-verse.

The idea that his brain could even begin to contemplate the idea of a multiverse is absurd!

 

[elliptic]

Regarding Exxonmobil’s lack of interest in Venezuela, also consider that former SoS Rex Tillerson was also their CEO, so the company may have feelings about the Trump admin.

 

[Klinn]

Back in Trump Round One, I enjoyed hearing Rex Tillerson publicly announce to the world that Trump is a moron.

I wonder if he would add a few more adjectives this time around.

 

[Carewolf]

He probably wants president of the multi-verse.

Let's tell him the only was to get that position is by shedding his mortal coil.

 

[AbidingArs]

Venezuelan drug trafficker Carlos Orense Azocar (aka "El Gordo") was sentenced to life plus 30 years in US court for charges of conspiring to import large amounts of cocaine and multiple weapons-related offenses. He was convicted in 2023. US investigators believe that he is one of the oldest operators linked to the Cartel de los Soles, starting his operation around 2003. Supposedly he bribed the Venezuelan government and military extensively and worked with guerrilla groups:

According to the evidence presented in court, he paid millions of dollars in bribes to senior officials throughout the Venezuelan state apparatus, including military generals, National Guard officers, police commissioners and senior figures within the country’s intelligence agencies. Those relationships, prosecutors said, allowed Orense to operate with near impunity inside Venezuela.

His government connections allegedly secured access to military-grade weaponry, protection from law enforcement and military raids, safe passage for cocaine convoys through checkpoints, and even fraudulent aircraft transponder codes that allowed cocaine-laden planes to depart Venezuelan airspace without interference.

Orense also partnered with armed guerrilla groups operating in Colombia and Venezuela, including elements of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia ( FARC), to source cocaine and ensure safe transit across border regions. Witnesses testified that members of the FARC were occasionally seen guarding landing strips where drug-laden planes touched down, some wearing Venezuelan army uniforms and carrying AK-47 rifles.

He was caught in Italy by Italian authorities and extradited to the United States of America, so this is not necessarily representative of what might happen with Maduro.

 

[Welcome to Darwin]

My God, is all of this; Venezuela, Greenland, whatever else, just a vanity project? If somebody gives him a picture of himself that says president of the world, will he just go away!

(It actually makes sense, in a Donald J Trump kind-of-way)

That's kind of the central point of being pathologically narcissistic: everything really is all about him. In his mind, anyway.

 

[LtKernelPanic]

Not sure if this is the right thread but I noticed gas prices jumped 30-50 cents a gallon here in the last few days. Somehow the one thing he’s managed to do (lower gas prices) he’s already screwing up.

 

[wallinbl]

Gas price have little to do with the president or his/her actions. People like to perceive that the opposing party drives them up when they go up, or their own party drives them down when they go down, but reality is that's just not correlated or causal.

 

[Technarch]

Not sure if this is the right thread but I noticed gas prices jumped 30-50 cents a gallon here in the last few days. Somehow the one thing he’s managed to do (lower gas prices) he’s already screwing up.

Iran has the markets spooked in a way that Venezuela can’t.

 

[HalfHench]

Iran has the markets spooked in a way that Venezuela can’t.

Venezuela can't close the Strait of Hormuz, which would block around 20% of the world's seaborne LNG transportation and around 25% of seaborne oil transportation.

 

[Embattle]

Check the first picture, so happy:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2w94wp4p1o

 

[Ianal]

Annexing the Nobel Peace prize - you have got to be fucking kidding me.

Is there anything that Trump won't shit all over (literally or metaphorically) in a petulant man-baby tantrum?

 

[wireframed]

Check the first picture, so happy:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2w94wp4p1o

My first thought was, that’s one of the few times I’ve seen Trump seem truly happy. Like a kid on Christmas.

He really doesn’t care at all that it’s a meaningless gesture. (Well, meaningless in regards to the Nobel prize, but the submission is real). It’s like the FIFA trophy he stole. I cannot fathom being that happy about a stolen, unearned and undeserved award.

But I guess that just means I’m not quite as narcissistic as Trump at least.

 

[Gary Patterson]

Venezuelan drug trafficker Carlos Orense Azocar (aka "El Gordo") was sentenced to life plus 30 years in US court for charges of conspiring to import large amounts of cocaine and multiple weapons-related offenses. He was convicted in 2023. US investigators believe that he is one of the oldest operators linked to the Cartel de los Soles, starting his operation around 2003. Supposedly he bribed the Venezuelan government and military extensively and worked with guerrilla groups:

He was caught in Italy by Italian authorities and extradited to the United States of America, so this is not necessarily representative of what might happen with Maduro.

Another Biden-era conviction. A few million and Trump will pardon him and wish him well. Surely a lot of people think Azocar was treated terribly, very unfair by the corrupt Biden regime.

 

[GloatingSwine]

Annexing the Nobel Peace prize - you have got to be fucking kidding me.

Is there anything that Trump won't shit all over (literally or metaphorically) in a petulant man-baby tantrum?

It's not like the Nobel Peace Prize actually has much integrity. Like Trump is mostly salty Obama got one, but Obama got one within 5 minutes of becoming President literally for not being George W Bush, and went on to continue foreign wars and extrajudicial drone strike killings abroad.

 

[Kevin Lantz]

It's not like the Nobel Peace Prize actually has much integrity. Like Trump is mostly salty Obama got one, but Obama got one within 5 minutes of becoming President literally for not being George W Bush, and went on to continue foreign wars and extrajudicial drone strike killings abroad.

yeah that felt more like a "kudos america, you finally elected a black man and he's hopefully going to end wars"

 

[Pino90]

yeah that felt more like a "kudos america, you finally elected a black man and he's hopefully going to end wars"

Narrator: he didn't.

 

[Zod]

Check the first picture, so happy:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2w94wp4p1o

He won't like the middle panel, because it mentions her. I wouldn't be surprised if he had it reframed with the text saying "The 2025 Nobel Peace Prize Medal awarded to President Donald J Trump".

 

[HalfHench]

Give him time.

 

[Lt_Storm]

Check the first picture, so happy:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2w94wp4p1o

Well, I suppose it isn't the first time someone gave a Nobel Prize to a Nazi.

 

[dio82]

It's not like the Nobel Peace Prize actually has much integrity. Like Trump is mostly salty Obama got one, but Obama got one within 5 minutes of becoming President literally for not being George W Bush, and went on to continue foreign wars and extrajudicial drone strike killings abroad.

They apparently gave it to him because of stuff he did before becoming president, but I'd be fucked if I knew what it was.

 

[wallinbl]

They apparently gave it to him because of stuff he did before becoming president, but I'd be fucked if I knew what it was.

They put information about why here. It was clearly a directional award, not not one based on specific accomplishments. It was controversial at the time and not universally accepted as a great choice. Reading between the lines of what they said, it certainly seemed like it was an endorsement of moving away from the GWB worldview and hope for a different future. Given that, there's zero chance they'd give Trump one since he's hellbent on going even farther than GWB in the direction the Nobel Committee was happy to see in the rearview mirror.

 

[Shavano]

I don't see any potential high returns in the future for Venezuelan crude. The breakeven point to extract the crude there is going to be a lot higher than how much a barrel of crude is selling right now. That's also not taking into account the infrastructure needed to start that extraction process will take a lot of money and time to put into place.

Oil companies are basically looking at a loss going into Venezuela. Why investment in a financial quagmire?

Also, another consideration to keep in mind was that Venezuela's proven reserves was 100 million barrels in 2007. The amount tripled to 300 million barrels because Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro said it was 300 million barrels. OPEC doesn't actually check claims of reserves. They accept the member state's reserve claims at face value.

The estimate is 300 BILLION barrels. Venezuelan oil competes with US produced oil. American oil companies would rather leave that crude in the ground until and unless they're out of readier and cheaper to produce options.

I don't know what basis Chavez had for upping the estimate. Possibly some geologists told him there really was probably that much, or they might have revised the estimates of what could be produced from proven fields upwards because fracking allows them to get more oil out of the ground than older methods.

 

[Coriolanus]

I don't know what basis Chavez had for upping the estimate. Possibly some geologists told him there really was probably that much, or they might have revised the estimates of what could be produced from proven fields upwards because fracking allows them to get more oil out of the ground than older methods.

Chavez probably revised it up to make Venezuela look more important. The number was reported in OPEC's annual statistical bulletin in 2011/2012 and is only self reported and never verified by any third parties.

Hydraulic fracturing isn't used for deposits like the Orinoco belt reserves. It's not shale oil.

 

[goates]

Venezuelan oil competes with US produced oil. American oil companies would rather leave that crude in the ground until and unless they're out of readier and cheaper to produce options.

Conversely, many US refineries in the Midwest and Gulf Coast are designed to handle heavy oil from Alberta and/or Venezuela. These heavy oils trade at a discount compared to the lighter US oils the Permian and elsewhere, meaning the companies could buy cheaper heavy oil for use in the local refineries and sell the more profitable light oil elsewhere.

Edit to add link:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/cibc-venezuela-alberta-us-trans-mountain-9.7043951

 

[SedsAtArs]

He won't like the middle panel, because it mentions her. I wouldn't be surprised if he had it reframed with the text saying "The 2025 Nobel Peace Prize Medal awarded to President Donald J Trump".

This was my first thought when I saw the photos. If you want to raise the odds of your country transitioning into something resembling a democracy instead of being Trump's hand puppet then surely you don't put in any text reminding him that a woman won the prize he craved.

 

[AbidingArs]

The estimate is 300 BILLION barrels. Venezuelan oil competes with US produced oil. American oil companies would rather leave that crude in the ground until and unless they're out of readier and cheaper to produce options.

I don't know what basis Chavez had for upping the estimate. Possibly some geologists told him there really was probably that much, or they might have revised the estimates of what could be produced from proven fields upwards because fracking allows them to get more oil out of the ground than older methods.

I am totally confused trying to follow these arguments over the oil. From what I can tell, the USGS estimated the low end of the Orinoco oil belt at 380 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil in 2009. Importantly, they did not try to determine how much could economically be recovered. Beyond that, I'm not familiar enough with the topic to try to make sense of that report:

The assessment of technically recoverable heavy oil and associated gas resources is shown in table 2. The mean of the distribution of heavy oil resources is about 513 BBO, with a range from 380 to about 652 BBO. The mean estimate of associated dissolved-gas resource is 135 trillion cubic feet of gas (TCFG), with a range from 53 to 262 TCFG. No attempt was made in this study to estimate either economically recoverable resources or reserves within the Orinoco Oil Belt AU. Most important, these results do not imply anything about rates of heavy oil production or about the likelihood of heavy oil recovery. Also, no time frame is implied other than the use of reasonably foreseeable recovery technology.

 

[wco81]

WSJ alert just now:


US seeks regime change in Cuba by end of year.

 

[acefsw]

WSJ alert just now:


US seeks regime change in Cuba by end of year.

Prince of peace, amiright?

I wish there was a hell so Trump and his cronies could rot on it.

 

[Welcome to Darwin]

WSJ alert just now:


US seeks regime change in Cuba by end of year.

When someone stands up to a bully, the bully often goes after (who they think is) the weakest kid in the schoolyard.