{"id":463281,"date":"2026-02-12T01:51:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T01:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/463281\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T01:51:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T01:51:09","slug":"us-energy-secretary-arrives-in-venezuela-to-assess-oil-industry-overhaul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/463281\/","title":{"rendered":"US energy secretary arrives in Venezuela to assess oil industry overhaul"},"content":{"rendered":"

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) \u2014 United States Energy Secretary Chris Wright<\/a> arrived Wednesday in Venezuela for a firsthand assessment of the country\u2019s oil industry, a visit that further asserts the U.S. government\u2019s self-appointed role in turning around Venezuela\u2019s dilapidated energy sector<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Wright met Venezuela\u2019s acting President Delcy Rodr\u00edguez<\/a> at the Miraflores presidential palace in the capital, Caracas. He is expected to meet with government officials, oil executives and others during a three-day visit to the South American country.<\/p>\n

Wright\u2019s visit comes as the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump continues to lift sanctions to allow foreign companies to operate in Venezuela and help rebuild the nation\u2019s most important industry. It follows last month\u2019s enactment of a Venezuelan law that opened the nation\u2019s oil sector<\/a> to private investment, reversing a tenet of the self-proclaimed socialist movement that has ruled the country for more than two decades.<\/p>\n

\u201cI bring today a message from President Trump,\u201d Wright told reporters as he stood next to Rodr\u00edguez with flags from both countries behind them. \u201cHe is passionately committed to absolutely transforming the relationship between the United States and Venezuela, part of a broader agenda to make the Americas great again, to bring our countries closer together, to bring commerce, peace, prosperity, jobs, opportunity to the people of Venezuela.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rodr\u00edguez was sworn into her new role after the brazen Jan. 3 seizure<\/a> of then-President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro<\/a> in a U.S. military attack in Caracas. She proposed the overhaul of the country\u2019s energy law after Trump said his administration would take control<\/a> of Venezuela\u2019s oil exports and revitalize the ailing industry<\/a> by luring foreign investment<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Rodr\u00edguez on Wednesday acknowledged that Venezuela\u2019s relationship with the U.S. has had \u201chighs and lows\u201d but said both countries are now working on a mutually benefiting \u201cenergy agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLet diplomatic dialogue … and energy dialogue be the appropriate and suitable channels for the U.S. and Venezuela to maturely determine how to move forward,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Rodr\u00edguez\u2019s government expects the changes to the country\u2019s oil law to serve as assurances for major U.S. oil companies<\/a> that have so far hesitated about returning to the volatile country. Some of those companies lost investments when the ruling party enacted the existing law two decades ago to favor Venezuela\u2019s state-run oil company, PDVSA.<\/p>\n

The new law now grants private companies control over oil production and sales, ending PDVSA\u2019s monopoly over those activities as well as pricing. It also allows for independent arbitration of disputes, removing a mandate for disagreements to be settled only in Venezuelan courts, which are controlled<\/a> by the ruling party.<\/p>\n

Foreign investors view the involvement of independent arbitrators as crucial to guard against future expropriation.<\/p>\n

Wright told reporters the reform \u201cis a meaningful step in the right direction\u201d but \u201cprobably not far and clear enough to encourage the kind of large capital flows\u201d the U.S. would like to see in Venezuela. <\/p>\n

Wright planned to visit oil fields Thursday. <\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Follow AP\u2019s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/latin-america<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) \u2014 United States Energy Secretary Chris Wright arrived Wednesday in Venezuela for a firsthand assessment…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":463282,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,28,83190,14271,3316,12,3321,793,3140,3,18231,111,3776,200479,18598,192706,21,792,19,22,20,25,24,18232,18597,965],"class_list":{"0":"post-463281","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-caracas","11":"tag-central-america","12":"tag-christopher-wright","13":"tag-donald-trump","14":"tag-energy-industry","15":"tag-general-news","16":"tag-latin-america","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-nicolas-maduro","19":"tag-politics","20":"tag-sanctions-and-embargoes","21":"tag-send-to-apple-news","22":"tag-south-america","23":"tag-u-s-venezuela-conflict","24":"tag-united-states","25":"tag-united-states-government","26":"tag-united-states-of-america","27":"tag-unitedstates","28":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","29":"tag-us","30":"tag-usa","31":"tag-venezuela","32":"tag-venezuela-government","33":"tag-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=463281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463281\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/463282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}