President Donald Trump welcomes a group of top oil executives to the White House to discuss investments in Venezuela following the military’s successful capture of the country’s dictatorial President Nicolás Maduro and his wife over the weekend.
“Following the announcement of President Trump’s historic energy deal with Venezuela, U.S. oil companies will visit the White House to discuss investment opportunities that will restore Venezuela’s oil infrastructure,” White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers told Fox News Digital Friday morning.
“The American people, energy “Oil companies and the people of Venezuela will all benefit greatly from these unprecedented new investments in Venezuela’s oil infrastructure thanks to President Trump.”
Fox News Digital has learned that the long list of oil companies includes: Chevron, Exxon, ConocoPhillips, Continental, Halliburton, HKN, Valero, Marathon, Shell, Trafigura, Vitol Americas, Repsol, Eni, Aspect Holdings, Tallgrass, Raisa Energy and Hilcorp.
Trump to meet with oil executives over Venezuela on Friday
A pump jack sits near an oil spill at a Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA) facility in the Orinoco Belt in El Tigre, Venezuela. (Bloomberg/Getty Images/Getty Images)
Trump will also be joined by a handful of Cabinet members, including the secretary of state. Marco RubioEnergy Secretary Chris Wright Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.
Trump announced a successful strike in Venezuela on Saturday morning in a military operation that did not kill any members of the U.S. military and led to the arrest of Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, on wide-ranging drug charges. The couple was transported to New York and pleaded not guilty in the case at their arraignment Monday.
TAKEDOWN OF MADURO COULD REVERSE DECADES OF ECONOMIC STRUGGLES FOR VENEZUELANS
They are being held at the Metropolitan Federal Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York.
President Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House December 15, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images/Getty Images)
Venezuela is an oil-rich country, and Trump announced shortly after the operation that the United States would “run” the South American nation, without going into detail about what that would entail.
He announced on social media on Tuesday that Venezuelan oil would immediately be returned to the United States, including “between 30 and 50 MILLION barrels of high-quality sanctioned oil, to the United States of America.”
MADURO’S CAPTURE PUTS VENUEZE’S ECONOMY DEPENDENT ON CUBA’S OIL AT RISK
“This oil will be sold at its market price, and this money will be controlled by me, as President of the United States of America, to ensure that it is used for the benefit of the people of Venezuela and the United States! I have asked Secretary of Energy Chris Wright to execute this plan immediately. It will be transported by storage ships and shipped directly to loading docks in the United States,” Trump wrote.
He added that through this agreement, “Venezuela will ONLY buy products made in the United States, with the money it will receive from our new oil deal.”
Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and his wife are detained in New York where they will be tried for a number of crimes. (Matias Delacroix/Getty Images/Getty Images)
Trump said The New York Times In a lengthy interview Wednesday, he said he anticipated the United States would rule Venezuela and extract oil from its reserves for years.
Chevron is currently the only U.S. oil company operating in Venezuela, Fox Business previously reported, while ConocoPhillips and Exxon Mobil had operations in the country before the regime nationalized their assets.
THE oil executives are expected to discuss investment plans in Venezuela to allow the country’s oil production to increase.
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Eric Revell of Fox Business contributed to this report.
