President Donald Trump on Friday urged nearly 20 American oil executives to invest a combined $100 billion in rebuilding Venezuela’s decrepit energy infrastructure, presenting the plan as a way to drive down global oil prices and ease costs for American consumers. But oil industry leaders have expressed deep skepticism about pouring substantial capital into Venezuela, where profitability and government stability remain deeply uncertain. Several energy giants have lost billions of dollars in previous Venezuelan ventures, and executives in attendance on Friday said they would need to see “significant” changes in the country before they could invest. “You can imagine to re-enter [Venezuela] a third time would require some pretty significant changes from what we’ve historically seen here and what is currently the state,” Exxon Mobil CEO Darren Woods said at the White House meeting. “Venezuela today, it’s uninvestible, and so significant changes have to be made to those commercial frameworks, the legal system.” Asked what backstops would be implemented to prevent oil companies from losing billions if Venezuela becomes unstable, Trump said that the companies “know the risks.” Trump’s proposal envisions top executives from Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Shell and other major oil companies dramatically boosting Venezuelan oil production to reduce global prices to around $50 per barrel. “The plan is for them to spend — meaning our giant oil companies will be spending at least $100 billion of their money, not the government’s money,” Trump said in the East Room on Friday. “They don’t need government money, but they need…
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