BENEFIT of Venezuelans? U.S Energy Secy Chris Wright’s DEFENDS U.S. Digging over 50Mn Barrels of Oil

Oneindia

At a Washington forum, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright outlined priorities on gas, China competition, and AI, then made a striking claim about Venezuela’s oil policy serving the Venezuelan people alone.    His remarks reignited debate over sovereignty, sanctions, and production realities, as analysts question whether rhetoric aligns with outcomes for citizens amid economic strain and shifting geopolitics today worldwide scrutiny.      #Venezuela #EnergyPolicy #OilPolitics #USEA #ChrisWright #USEnergy #NaturalGas #Geopolitics #Sanctions #EnergySecurity #AIinEnergy #ChinaCompetition #LatinAmerica #OilProduction #Sovereignty #WashingtonDC #EnergyForum #GlobalEnergy #PolicyDebate #EconomicImpact  ~HT.318~ED.102~

Transcript

00:00Well, let's see, let me find a topic you may not be as passionate about.

00:03How about Venezuela?

00:07You know, from your point of view, being in the private sector, right,

00:12I mean, you produce energy, and then you see what happens, like, with Venezuela,

00:17a source of oil, natural gas.

00:19How do you assess, you know, what's happening there,

00:22not only just Venezuela, but other countries that also have, you know, supplies?

00:26You as a U.S. company, how do you factor that into supply and production, you know,

00:34when you see these kinds of additional sources potentially coming into the markets?

00:39Yeah, of course, new Venezuelan production, and I believe we will see that,

00:43growing Venezuelan production drives prices down.

00:47And I've always been that weird guy who spent most of my, I've been in many sectors of energy,

00:52but mostly in the oil and gas industry, and I've been a little bit lonely

00:56in cheering lower oil prices and lower natural gas prices.

01:01The shale revolution, just by the straight math,

01:03has saved U.S. consumers over a trillion dollars every year.

01:06It's pushed down oil prices and it's pushed down gas prices.

01:08Well, why do I like low prices?

01:10Because 100% of Americans consume oil and natural gas every day of their life,

01:16and 1% of Americans produce oil and gas.

01:20So high prices are a win for 1%.

01:23They're overlapping, of course, but it's a loss.

01:26It's a net loss for the other 99%.

01:29So, and that's what business is supposed to be about, right?

01:31Competitive innovation to drive down costs, to deliver products to consumers

01:35at ever higher quality and ever lower cost.

01:39So, yes, I have been a lifelong celebrator of lower oil prices,

01:43lower natural gas prices, lower coal prices,

01:44lower nuclear power plant costs, lower everything.

01:48If you can make energy cheaper, you make people's lives better.

01:51So Venezuela, of course, the policy wasn't about that,

01:54but it is a great and non-trivial secondary impact

02:00of what's going on in Venezuela.

02:02I'm sure everybody knows, like Venezuela for 26, now 27 years,

02:07have been on a downward decline,

02:09about a 70% decline in the real GDP.

02:14Like, I think only three other nations in history

02:17have exceeded that degree of plunge in the real GDP of a country.

02:24Just a horrible thing for the 30 million Venezuelans.

02:29And, of course, it gets people into criminality and drugs.

02:32And, you know, a failed state has impacts in its neighborhood.

02:36It has impacts on the United States.

02:37And we've tried all sorts of policies to try to push better behavior in Venezuela

02:43over that 20-plus year period, and nothing has worked.

02:47And, again, President Trump, if nothing else, he's iconoclastic.

02:51While nothing else has worked, we're going to do something different.

02:54And, you know, Biden administration had a $25 million bounty on the head of Maduro

03:00and his wife, who were basically narco-gangsters.

03:03And an incredible, incredible military operation,

03:08without a single loss of American life, you know, took them into custody.

03:13We arrested two criminals that were highly wanted in our country.

03:17And the other impact, side impact, is going to be just, this is tricky.

03:22There's challenges along the way.

03:24But it's going to likely be a massive improvement in the quality of life for Venezuelans.

03:30We're going to see a return of some of the Venezuelan diaspora.

03:32We're going to see huge benefits in the United States,

03:34because energy prices are going to be lower.

03:37Criminality is going to be lower.

03:38The importing of guns, the kidnapping of Americans,

03:41and human trafficking are going to go down.

03:43But, yes, and then how are we, and we have significant power right now

03:49or influence over Venezuela,

03:51not because we have any American boots or guns on the ground,

03:54but because we're going to, we're controlling today,

03:57we are controlling the sale of all of their, all of their oil and natural gas.

04:03And then we are taking those funds and placing them in American-controlled counts

04:07and flowing them back to Venezuela.

04:10Venezuela, we're getting about a 30% higher realized price

04:14when we sell the same barrel of oil than they sell the same barrel of oil three weeks ago.

04:20And a quarter or a third of it was leaked out in corruption

04:24and was never going back to the government.

04:27It was going out to criminal gangs in Cuba and elsewhere around.

04:32And internal corruption in their own oil companies.

04:37So it's not the desired end state,

04:40but today we have an ability to drive change that could transform a country,

04:45transform our relations with that country and conditions of life here

04:48with no more bullets fired.

04:50I am, it's a challenge, but I'm excited where we are.

04:53This is, this is a creative one of a, first of its kind.

04:57May not be the last of its kind, but first of the kind attempt to project American power

05:02for the betterment of Americans and the betterment of our hemisphere.

05:08Yeah, I mean, I'm old enough to remember,

05:10and I'm from the Gulf of America region,

05:12where we were building refineries, engineering refineries,

05:17to take the heavy sour from Venezuela.

05:21You know, we, this was before the shale revolution

05:23and all the breakthroughs, you know, that you and your company did.

05:28But by design, we had great relations back then with Venezuela.

05:32A prior panel talked about this.

05:35It only made too much sense.

05:36And you can go back for 100 years before the Chavez and Maduro regimes.

05:42Great relationship.

05:43Our refined, willingly.

05:45I mean, it was designed to take that specific crude.

05:48Project next four or five years in Venezuela, you know, if political stability there.

05:55What would be the best outcome in Venezuela?

06:00So, real quick history.

06:01When I was born, Venezuela was the third largest producer of oil in the world.

06:07U.S. was number one.

06:08Soviet Union was number two.

06:10Venezuela was number three in the world.

06:13Venezuela was top ten in per capita income.

06:17You know, peaceful, you know, thriving democracy.

06:20Of course, a lot of money flowing and fast, corruption issues.

06:23Not perfect, but a successful nation that was one of the wealthiest nations in Latin America,

06:29a great American ally, and, of course, top-down control, dictatorship, or whatever, it's fallen down.

06:35So, the goal is to get it, go back where it was.

06:38So, in the short term, we saw in Iraq, if you disempower the debathification,

06:43everybody that was in power, everybody that has the guns,

06:46and everybody that knows how to run the levers of the civil service and the government,

06:50that doesn't go well.

06:52So, we are dealing with the people with the guns today.

06:56We have, I think, the better faction of the people that have the guns in Venezuela,

07:01but they are, this is not a democratically elected representative government of the Venezuelan people.

07:06We want to keep the nation together.

07:09We want to see the economic conditions improve as quickly as possible for the people that live in Venezuela.

07:15We want to see the return of rule of law and order.

07:19We're going to see, hopefully, significant growth in the economy,

07:23make the conditions so American businesses and others will go back into the country and invest,

07:29and, ultimately, on a pathway to a representative government that's chosen and represents the will of the Venezuelan people

07:36that is, again, a peaceful, you know, market-based, U.S. ally, star member of our hemisphere.

07:44That's the vision.

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