Trump's Plan for Venezuela's Oil Industry

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Transcript

00:00The U.S. has carried out a series of airstrikes in Venezuela, capturing President Nicolas Maduro and his wife.

00:07President Donald Trump has said his threats against Venezuela, the U.S. military buildup in the region,

00:13and the destruction of civilian boats are about alleged drug trafficking.

00:17But there's another issue Trump has been talking about.

00:20The oil business in Venezuela has been a bust, a total bust, for a long period of time.

00:26We're going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world,

00:34go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure,

00:41and start making money for the country.

00:45Venezuela, on paper, has more than 300 billion barrels of oil, or roughly 17% of the world's known oil reserves.

00:55Most of those reserves are in this vast deposit known as the Orinoco Oil Belt.

01:01But there's even more potential underground.

01:04The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that Venezuela has more than 1 trillion barrels of oil in place in the Orinoco Belt.

01:12To put it in perspective, the world, until today, has consumed about 1.5 trillion.

01:18The chances are they are going to outlast the world's demand for oil.

01:22So, effectively, they are limitless at this point.

01:26And there already is a U.S. oil company that's been operating in the country for decades.

01:31Chevron produces about 25% of Venezuela's oil today.

01:35It's the largest investor in the oil industry and in the country.

01:39We are going to run the country until such time as a proper transition can take place.