Secretary Wright Joins CNBC's Brian Sullivan in Venezuela - September 2, 2026

Right now we want to get to our Brian Sullivan in Caracas, Venezuela, where he is joined by the Energy Secretary, Chris Wright. Brian, it's great to see you. Becky, good morning, everybody. Thank you. Yes, we are here with Energy Secretary Christopher Wright. We are live in Caracas, Venezuela, where the United States is ready to sign a major oil deal in this country. There's still a lot of questions. There are some confusions around that deal. So let's jump right in and ask the Energy Secretary exactly what we do know, what we still have to learn. Secretary Wright, thank you very much for joining us here in Venezuela. Tell us about what this deal is and what this deal is not. What this deal is to partner the United States with the development of oil and gas resources in Venezuela. It's not a displacement or a replacement of private companies. Business drives progress. Business will drive the growth of oil and gas production in Venezuela. But the United States' involvement both benefits the taxpayers of the United States with discounted oil and enormous reserves. But the United States government will not be the operator or producer of those reserves. So is this a taking of the oil? You know that is out there, that the United States is heavy handed coming in and taking Venezuelan property in violation of the Venezuelan constitution. Absolutely not. It's actually not even a deal between the US government, the Venezuelan government. It's a deal between the United States government and a Venezuelan company to help develop the resources. Let me frame it this way, Brian. Today, Venezuela's 12 or 15 percent of global oil reserves and just over 1 percent of global production. That's a problem today. It's an opportunity for tomorrow. And that private company is called North American Blue Energy Partners. They call it NABEP. It's run by a gentleman named Alejandro Betancourt. There's been a lot written about this guy. Some say he's a sort of shadowy figure, a godfather like figure. You don't need to get into his character. Are you confident that his his company will provide enough legal framework under U.S. law that other U.S. companies feel secure in investing with him and through him? Yes, I am. I am confident that they're the second largest producer in Venezuela today. So NABEP has been around. It's been a producer. Alejandro had some conflict with the previous regime in Venezuela, which has led to his appearance in the news and all that. But they have been a very competent operator in Venezuela. And of course, this structure is going to have United States oversight, United States enforcement of law in contracts. What we're doing is increasing the confidence for private businesses to come do deals in Venezuela directly with the government of Venezuela and possibly also with the partnership between NABEP. This is President Trump's grand plan to replace conflict with commerce. Because if you're Exxon Mobil, you're ConocoPhillips, who are why I'm sure they're watching right now. They're not here, but I'm sure they're watching. They're thinking, well, we did that and our assets were expropriated illegally, legally, and we're still waiting to be paid back for that. Do you have confidence? Can you speak to other American companies right now on CNBC publicly and privately that if they were to invest in Venezuela, you are confident that those investments, those contracts will be secure? Yes, and I think this moves that needle in the right direction. It's one thing for a government to expropriate assets of private corporations. It's another thing to expropriate assets that are owned by the United States of America. We think it increases this security and confidence in the rule of law and the sanctity of contract in Venezuela. To your point, Venezuela in 1997 peaked out at about three and a half million barrels a day, was one of the richest countries for oil in the world, the richest country in Latin America today, just over a million barrels. And that's actually up from where it was two years ago. Under this agreement in one year's time, how much more oil do you think Venezuela will realistically be able to produce? Well, I said early on when President Trump took this action that within 12 to 18 months, Venezuelan production would increase by 50 percent. I stand by that prediction from current levels. Well, we started a little bit less than one million barrels a day. Today, it's over 1.2 million barrels a day. I think we'll be well over a million and a half barrels a day by the first half of next year. And Venezuelan production will be over two million barrels a day by the end of this decade. So a lot of growth in Venezuelan oil production. This is downward pressure on oil prices globally. United States refineries, when they were built in the 60s and 70s, Venezuela was the largest exporter of oil in the world. Our refineries were built based on this Venezuelan crude. President Trump's broader agenda in the Americas, in the Western Hemisphere, is to return peaceful relations, prosperous relations across the countries of North and South America. That's had a rough few decades, but he's iconoclastic. And I think we are seeing an absolutely historic transformation of both Venezuela and the relations between Venezuela and the United States. Chevron is here. We'll speak with them later. They are not a part of this deal, by the way. I want to make that clear. Chevron has their own deal. They've been here for over 100 years. As you know, the majority of Venezuelan oil is kind of thick, sludgy. Don't want to get into the sort of the geology of the oil, but it's primarily used for diesel fuel. My friends in Canada have been pinging me pretty hard, Mr. Secretary, that they're worried this is some sort of a hit on Canada, that this oil will compete directly with Canadian oil or even other oil production in the United States. Is this competition for North American oil? Well, of course, all crude is competition with all other crude. And what's the net result of competition is lower prices, not displacement of demand. If you have lower oil prices, you have faster demand growth. The world has been in this crazy view that somehow demand for oil is going to peak by the end of the decade or the next decade after that. That is nonsense, Brian. A billion people live lives like you and I. Seven billion people aspire to live lives like you and I. We need massively more growth in global oil production, global natural gas production and global coal production in the coming decades. Now, but will this deal, do you think, dissuade U.S. producers from drilling more wells? Or are you convinced that this deal will, because you've made the point that the oil, a lot of the oil here is already produced by China and Russia or being sold to them, that this oil might displace some of their profits? What will the primary use of this oil be? Because it can't necessarily be used to refill the SPR because it's a different type of oil. Oil is the largest commodity traded in the world, the largest business in the world. As we're doing in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve right now, we swapped barrels right now during a time of conflict for return of barrels later. You can also swap types of crude. We'll swap you a barrel of heavy crude for a barrel of light or medium United States crude. So look, these are fluid, liquid marketplace. Doesn't mean that exactly these barrels go in there. Okay, good. Because also that has been out there. We can't put this oil, this exact oil in those salt caves. Your company might be able to exchange them for other oil that can be used to refill the SPR. Of course. I want to ask you, I've got to pivot. We're here in Venezuela, but Iran's still in the news. Oil above $90 a barrel. Reports of ships being hit by mines this morning. We've seen some revision of data from some of the satellite tracking companies on the volume of oil going through the Strait of Hormuz. What is your data, maybe the best data in the world from the U.S. government? What is your data showing of the true volume of oil going through that critical waterway right now? So Monday was our record ever since the conflict began. Over 17 million barrels of oil flowed through the Strait of Hormuz on ships on Monday. If you add the bypass export pipelines, more than left the region in the pre-conflict. So is Iran trying to challenge that? Yes. Are there challenges? Yes. But this is the United States Navy and President Trump taking the one card out of Iran's hands, which is to try to hold the world economic hostage. That's what they've got. They're all in on it. They're causing some disruption, but they are losing that card. President Trump is using the United States military might and alliances across the world that with or without Iran, oil and gas will flow out of the Arabian Gulf region. And it's happening today. Final question, will the U.S. Navy stay there as long as needed? I know you're not the Secretary of War, but I'm going to ask that. I'm confident they will. Look, President Trump went into that region and said this is a region that could have enormous prosperity, but it has one massive problem, and that's Iran. Whether you're in the West Bank, you're in Gaza, you're in Lebanon, the troubles you hear about from these groups, the root of that, all of that is Iran. The United States is going to end Iran's pathway to a nuclear bomb and their ability to wreak havoc in an entire region. U.S. Secretary of Energy Christopher Wright, Secretary Wright, really appreciate you joining us here on CBC. Thank you, sir. Thank you for being here, Brian.