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

0:00It's Consider 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. We have a great relationship with Venezuela. It's, you know, 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.

0:41And 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 history. At the center of the deal is a controversial figure named Alejandro Betancourt. What do we know about him and the company he runs?

1:19From NPR, I'm Mary Louise Kelly. Support for this NPR podcast and the following message come from Carvana. selling your car carvana has offers so good they're almost inexplicable sell your car 100 online in minutes visit carvana.com today at npr there's a little something for everyone if you need advice for that big life change try listening to life kit if you want to know more about that new tv show check out pop culture happy hour and if you want to dive deeper into your favorite podcasts and enjoy perks like bonus episodes archive access and more check out npr plus Find out more and support the shows you love at plus.npr.org.

2:02Waylon, it seems like everything is being called a recession indicator these days. Yeah, like the box of Hamburger Helper in my pantry. Or the new Apple Neo book. Or the resurgence of press on nails or lipstick or no lipstick. I've lost track. There is only one way to know if these are actual economic warning signs, though. Listen to the indicator from Planet Money on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

2:31It's Consider 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 Venezuela's oil reserves. Energy experts tell NPR they are skeptical that this company and the person running it, that they're up for the task. NPR energy and climate correspondent Julia Simon is following developments and joins us now. Hey there, Julia. Hello, Mary Louise. So the Trump administration announced this Venezuela deal late Friday. The new twist is they have now confirmed which company is involved. What is it? Yeah, the company is called North American Blue Energy Partners.

3:12It'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 U.S. 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 U.S. 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.

3:53But of course, there's the fact that the U.S. 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 U.S. is presumably going to rely a lot on their partner. 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 Faja field. That's the super thick peanut butter-like oil in Venezuela. Here's Gerald Kepes. He's a geologist and the president of Competitive Energy Strategies, an energy consultancy in D.C.

4:39What they are is a production company, which is not a bad thing. But there's no question they have zero experience in terms of developing new FAA-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. Is there a discussion about other oil companies jumping in, trying to partner with them? We reached out to Chevron and didn't hear back. ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil declined to comment. Kepes thinks many international oil companies may be wary of partnering with this joint venture with the U.S.

5:22government, 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 other thing I'm wondering about the relevance of the war that Israel and the U.S. 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.

6:02He clearly wants that. But again, energy experts keep beating the drum, which is it's the geology. Many of these fields are still largely undeveloped. They will take time to get to market. So the idea that this deal will impact gas prices anytime soon, they say, is absurd. NPR's Julia Simon, thank you. Thank you. And let's stay with this new agreement that the Trump administration is celebrating, saying it will give the U.S. access to vast amounts of Venezuelan oil. As NPR's John Otis reports, the deal could help keep Venezuela's unpopular U.S.-backed interim president in power. Trump calls it, quote, the biggest oil deal in world history.

6:43Under the 25-year agreement announced Friday, the U.S. 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 U.S. majority control over 65 billion barrels of Venezuela's proven oil reserves. Los ingresos de nuestro país llegarían a un total de 209 ,335 millones de dólares. For her part, Venezuela's acting president, Delcy Rodriguez, claimed in a speech that the arrangement will bring her country jobs, foreign investment, and more than$209 billion in oil taxes. Our country has the largest oil reserves in the world, she said, but what good is it if it remains in the ground?

7:43It's a dramatic U-turn for Venezuela. Its socialist government spent much of the past 25 years lambasting Washington, shooing away U.S. oil companies and nationalizing their assets. That's the late President Hugo Chavez in 2007, celebrating his seizure of U.S.-operated oil fields in eastern Venezuela. Eventually, amid government mismanagement, corruption, and U.S. sanctions, Venezuela's oil production plummeted. In January this year, U.S. military forces removed authoritarian leader Nicolás Maduro from power and established a pro-Washington government led by Rodriguez. Trump then called on U.S.

8:30oil companies to invest$100 billion in Venezuela. But later, at a White House summit with U.S. oil majors, ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods was wary. We first got into Venezuela back in the 1940s. We've had our assets seized there twice. And so you can imagine to reenter 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 U.S. firms still complain about high taxes, opaque bidding procedures, and rampant influence peddling.

9:16If 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 1 million barrels per day. But that's a far cry from the 3.4 million daily barrels Venezuela produced back in the 1990s. It marks the first time Washington will become directly involved in oil production since World War II. 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. effort. Amy Myers-Jaffe is an energy expert at New York University.

9:59She says Venezuela's oil fields, pipelines, refineries, and ports are all badly degraded and that ramping up production will take years. These fields take a lot of work. It's not like Iraq or Saudi Arabia where you're going to stick a needle in the ground and the oil is just going to flow out. Many average Venezuelans are also skeptical.

10:24Now the Americans will practically own all our oil, says Caracas resident Margarita Yepes. Even so, David Smiley, 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 and getting U.S. 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, Sofia Palisa-Kar, and Karen Zamora, with audio engineering by Eowyn Fain and Ted Meebane.

11:17Our director is Jonas Adams. It was edited by Tara Neal, Justine Kennan, Sadie Babbitts, and Tinbeet Ermus. Our interim executive producer is Courtney Dorning.

11:34It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Mary Louise Kelly. The fatal shooting of a teenager at a protest in Seattle has gone unsolved for six years. This is open in your face. How are there no answers? Our investigation has uncovered new evidence and witnesses who say they've never talked to police. Did police ever call you? Not once. Listen to We Keep Us Safe, a new true crime series on the Embedded Podcast from NPR.