Don't expect the oil and profits to start flowing from Venezuela

- Trump's sums don't add up

- Nils Pratley

The theory sounds straightforward. Venezuela has vast oil reserves and used to produce more than three times as much volume as it does now. Therefore it should be a simple matter to upgrade the crumbling kit with an injection of dollars and watch the extra barrels and profits flow.

That, roughly speaking, is the only clear part of Donald Trump’s plan for what happens next in Venezuela. “We're going to have our very large US oil companies - the biggest anywhere in the world - go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure - the oil infrastructure - and start making money for the country,” he said at the weekend.

The reality looks difficult. From the point of view of US oil companies, the invitation - or command - from the White House is not straightforward. The possible exception is Chevron since it is already in Venezuela via a handful of joint ventures with the country’s state-owned oil company. If sanctions, quotas and government restrictions were now to clear, it could probably find ways to raise production efficiently. A 4% rise in Chevron’s share price said as much.