What do we know about the company behind President Trump’s Venezuelan oil deal?

0:00It's considered this, where every day we go deep on one big news story. Today, getting to know the man behind President Trump's oil deal with Venezuela. On his Truth Social account, President Trump announced, quote, the biggest oil deal in world history. That was last Friday. This week, he gave details. And then we have a great relationship with Venezuela. It's a team, in a sense. That's Trump speaking with reporters on Monday. And we're taking out millions and millions of barrels of oil, going to Houston, going to Louisiana, going to lots of different places in the United States, and all over the world. And we're doing, we're making a fortune and they're making a fortune. They're starting to make real money. The private oil producer involved in the deal is someone with a long history of supporting U.S. interests. Consider this. President Trump has called his agreement with Venezuela the biggest oil deal in world

1:00history. At the center of the deal is a controversial figure named Alejandro Betancourt. What do we know about him? And the company he runs. From NPR, I'm Mary Louise Kelly. This message comes from SOTFA. Back to school takes a lot of energy, focus, and stamina. Not just for the kids, but for the teachers and parents too. And that requires deep, restorative sleep. The kind that every SOTFA mattress is designed to provide. Because every tomorrow starts the night before. And now save up to $625 on $1,000 or more at SOTFA.com slash NPR. That's S-W-A-T-V-A dot com slash NPR. This message comes from BetterHelp. Imagine carrying a backpack every day. Inside it, every conversation, every mistake, every expectation.

2:01It is easy not to notice how heavy it is until someone asks if you want to put it down. Sometimes feeling better starts exactly like that. Better isn't one size fits all. Better is personal. It's therapy tailored to the individual to help lighten what you carry. Which with a therapist who truly understands, visit BetterHelp.com slash NPR. It's considered this from NPR. After days of speculation, the White House has confirmed the Venezuelan company that it will work with to develop a vast amount of Venezuelan oil reserves. Energy experts tell NPR they are skeptical that this company and the person running it that they are up for the task. NPR Energy and Climate Correspondent Julius Simon is following developments and joins us now. Hey, they're Julia. Hello, Mary Louise. So the Trump administration announced this Venezuelan deal late Friday.

3:02The new twist is they have now confirmed which company is involved. What is it? Yeah, the company is called North American Blue Energy Partners. It's an oil company. They do exploration and production. It's headquartered in Barbados with corporate offices in Venezuela. Behind the company is 46 year old Alejandro Betancourt. He has faced multiple investigations in Spain, Switzerland and the US for money laundering. He has not been formally charged. Okay. So some questions there. Also I gather a lot of questions about just how this joint venture is going to work. Yes. That's an understatement. There are just a lot of questions. The Trump administration says the US would get 55% of the oil from the joint venture. They say that's equivalent to about 65 billion barrels of oil that's under the ground. But of course, there's the fact that the US doesn't have a national oil company, Mary Louise. We don't have a Saudi Aramco like Saudi Arabia. So to develop this Venezuelan oil, the US is presumably going to rely a lot on their

4:07partner. But I've talked to a lot of oil analysts and they are aware of North American blue energy partners. It is an oil operator in Venezuela, but it's unclear if the company has ever developed a new oil field, particularly a new so-called Fahafield. That's the super thick peanut butter like oil in Venezuela. Here's Gerald Kepis. He's a geologist and the president of competitive energy strategies and energy consultancy in DC. But there is a production company, which is not a bad thing, but there's no question they have zero experience in terms of developing new Fahafield type oil deposits. And I should say that we reached out to North American blue energy partners and they did not respond to our request for comment. So I'm wondering, it sounds like this company may need some help to develop these oil fields. A discussion about other oil companies jumping in trying to partner with them.

5:09We reached out to Chevron and didn't hear back. Connico Phillips and ExxonMobil declined to comment. Kepis thinks many international oil companies may be wary of partnering with this joint venture with the US government, given the reputational risks and legal uncertainties. We should note Chevron is expected to make an announcement tomorrow that they are expanding operations in Venezuela. But Mary Louise, that doesn't seem to be related to this deal. One of the things I'm wondering about the relevance of the war that Israel and the US started with Iran has left the Trump administration with high gas prices and midterms looming. We know today the president's meeting with oil and gas retailers and refineries. Is any of that connected with this new joint venture in Venezuela? Well, President Trump has said on true social that this deal would lower gas prices. He clearly wants that. But again, energy experts keep feeding the drum, which is it's the geology. Many of these fields are still largely undeveloped.

6:09They will take time to get to market. So the idea that this deal will impact gas prices anytime soon, they say, is absurd. And here's Julie Simon. Thank you. Thank you. And let's stay with this new agreement that the Trump administration is celebrating, saying will give the US access to vast amounts of Venezuela and oil. As NPR's John Otis reports, the deal could help keep Venezuela's unpopular US backed interim president in power. Trump calls it quote, the biggest oil deal in world history. Under the 25 year agreement announced Friday, the US government will partner with an unnamed private company to develop 17 untapped oil fields in Venezuela. Trump claims the deal will double American petroleum reserves by giving the US majority control over 65 billion barrels of Venezuela's proven oil reserves. For her part, Venezuela's acting president, Delce Rodriguez, claimed in a speech that the arrangement

7:20will bring her country jobs, foreign investment, and more than $209 billion in oil taxes. Our country has the largest oil reserves in the world, but what good is it if it remains in the ground? It's a dramatic U-turn for Venezuela. Its socialist government spent much of the past 25 years lambasting Washington, showing away US oil companies and nationalizing their assets. That's the late president Hugo Chavez in 2007, celebrating his seizure of US operated oil fields in eastern Venezuela. Eventually, amid government mismanagement, corruption, and US sanctions, Venezuela's oil production plummeted. In January this year, US military forces removed authoritarian leader Nicolas Maduro from power

8:22and established a pro-Washington government led by Rodriguez. Trump then called on US oil companies to invest $100 billion in Venezuela. But later, at a White House summit with US oil majors, ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods was wary. We first started in Venezuela back in the 1940s. We've had our assets seize there twice. And so you can imagine to re-enter a third time would require some pretty significant changes. Venezuela has made some of those changes, like reducing taxes and allowing international arbitration for contract disputes. But Francisco Monaldi, who directs the Latin America Energy Program at Rice University, says US firms still complain about high taxes, opaque bidding procedures, and rampant influence peddling. If you talk to the big companies here, they are all really concerned about how things are being handled. Oil production has inched up this year from just below to just above one million barrels per day.

9:28But that's a far cry from the 3.4 million daily barrels Venezuela produced back in the 1990s. In marks the first time Washington will become directly involved in oil production since World War 2. But there are few details, and it remains unclear whether private oil companies will follow Trump's lead. My gut reaction is that this doesn't make any difference whatsoever. Amy Myers-Jaffee is an energy expert at New York University. She says Venezuela's oil fields, pipelines, refineries and ports are all badly degraded, and that ramping up production will take years. Many average Venezuelans are also skeptical. Now the Americans will practically own all our oil, says Caracas resident Margarita Yepes.

10:30Even so, David Smildy, a Venezuela scholar at Tulane University, says the oil deal could provide a boost to acting president Rodriguez. She heads a deeply unpopular authoritarian regime which has denied opposition demands for free elections. They do not want to relinquish power, and they know that pleasing the Trump administration in getting US investment is key. As a result, he says the oil deal might speed up Venezuela's economy, but slow down its transition to democracy. That was NPR's John Otis. This episode was produced by Elena Burnett, Sophia, Polisa, Carr, and Karen Zamora, with audio engineering by Aya Winfayne and Ted Meabane. Our director is Jonas Adams. It was edited by Tara Neal, Justine Kennin, Sadie Babitz, and Tinbeet Air Muse. Our interim executive producer is Courtney Dording.

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