Venezuela needs to “completely rewire” its fiscal system to attract new investment, ConocoPhillips CEO Ryan Lance said on Tuesday at the CERAWeek conference in Houston, underscoring the challenges facing the country’s oil industry in the wake of President Nicolas Maduro’s capture in January.
Lance called a reformed hydrocarbon law in the OPEC-member country “woefully inadequate” and said the country needed to guarantee contract durability to attract large-scale investment.
Following the U.S. capture and removal of Maduro from office, President Donald Trump has called on oil firms to spend $100 billion to rebuild Venezuela’s energy industry, which has suffered from long-standing underinvestment.
Venezuela owes ConocoPhillips $12 billion stemming from the expropriation of the company’s assets in 2007, Lance said, adding that his focus was on recouping those losses.
Lance’s comments echoed those of Chevron CEO Mike Wirth on Monday, who said the new hydrocarbon law had broad fiscal terms that required specific incentives.
(Reporting by Sheila Dang in Houston; Writing by Liz Hampton; Editing by David Gregorio)