$133 per barrel - Sergey Vakulenko's opinion on President Trump's Venezuelan project

The conventional wisdom is that the goal of the U.S. campaign in Venezuela is oil. President Trump even named the amount of money he is going to get for Venezuelan raw materials. Sergey Vakulenko wondered whether the White House understands what exactly it is going to buy. We publish the post without bills - this is Sergey Vakulenko's private opinion.

Spent an hour and a half listening to Trump's conversation with oil workers on Venezuela. I thought I was used to this genre from watching Putin's talks with captains of industry or industry ministers, but no, it turned out to be much worse. I was probably not ready for such a volume of praise for myself, sidestepping distracting topics, and swearing at my predecessors. And practically everything that all the other participants said was in the style of Shvartsev's "Your Majesty! You know that I am an honest old man, an old man with a straight face. I tell the truth straight to the eye, even if it is unpleasant. I have stood here all the time, seen you, frankly speaking, waking up, heard you laughing, and so on. Let me tell you plainly, your majesty... King: Speak. You know I am never angry with you. First Minister: Let me tell you bluntly, rudely, in the old man's way: you are a great man, my sovereign!".

There was exactly one person, Darren Wood, CEO of ExxonMobil, who did not hesitate to cut at least a thin slice of the truth about how much he is interested in Venezuela now, at least. Everyone else thanked the party and Comrade Trump personally for their happy old age (the people there were mostly in their teens) and for the broad prospects opened up by his wise leadership. It seems that everyone has long ago learned that this is the way to deal with Trump; in public, at least, one should be flattered and thanked.

The press who were there and were given a chance to ask questions were not too interested in Venezuela, asking mostly about the Minnesota murder.

Then the public part ended, Trump and his people stayed with the oilmen in private and maybe started talking about something specific.

Many people believe that Trump went to Venezuela because of oil - so that America could get it, so that America's enemies would not get it, that he sees some huge riches there, in fact, he says it himself and on Friday he also voiced this line. So, I was actively asked by journalists and friends how much oil riches there are.

In Wednesday's article and in a couple of podcasts this week, I said several times that Venezuela certainly has plenty of oil, but it's, as they say, hard luck, production may not be a gram, but labor is definitely a year, costs are high, the resulting product is not the most valuable, so it will probably be possible to make money, but it won't be easy. Virtually all analysts agree on the same idea - that under the most favorable conditions, Venezuelan production will not grow as fast and yield less than stellar margins. In principle, Wood, although sprinkling sugar on his words, said approximately the same thing.

But then observers have a legitimate question: is Trump a fool or something, doesn't he understand this at all? Doesn't he have the Ministry of Energy, analysts, consultants who would tell him what and how, he has been a businessman for decades, not the secretary of the regional committee for ideology? The answer to this is simple - I am not familiar with Trump, but all his behavior and conversations, current ones at least, demonstrate that he is extremely superficial and does not go into details and minutiae, he counts by order of magnitude. He sees the country, he knows about its huge oil reserves, he knows that production has fallen, he knows that there was a socialist government there, from which all the troubles always come, and this is enough for him to assume that if some enterprising Yankee enters the country, runs a telegraph, opens a patent office, the country will blossom, the country will be covered with a network of railroads and zoos, and Americans will be able to make money on it. Case closed, everything is clear, let's go to reconcile the next Azerbaijanis and Cambodians and watch the zero cycle of construction of the Trump Ballroom. At the same time, he seems to have the strangest numbers in his head and makes decisions based on them.

As a matter of fact, he demonstrated this yesterday. There is a strange story - it seems that Venezuela has already transferred some 30 or even 50 million barrels of oil to the United States. How it transferred it, where it transferred it - it is not clear at all. By the way, this is not so little, from 40 to 70 days of exports, a noticeable share of the annual export earnings of the country, which is not the richest today. Apparently in payment for liberation from a tyrant. Trump voices 30 million barrels and says America will sell them now. It is important for Trump to demonstrate that, unlike past administrations, America does not engage in a charitable foreign policy, and that the beneficiaries must pay in cash for all the good they have done.

Nah, well, if you know the secret of how to sell Venezuelan oil at $133 a barrel in the current situation, then there really is money on the ground in Venezuela, and the ExxonMobil fearmongers and skeptics can keep whining, but I wish I knew such a secret. Darren Wood does too, I think, and he doesn't seem to be blessed with that knowledge. I guess he has little experience and qualification in the oil industry (I am not talking about myself, I am not the one with a pig's snout in the thick of things).

And then Trump told a lot of interesting things about wind generation - they say that Europe is ruining itself by building up beautiful European landscapes with stupid wind turbines, which are happily sold to them by China, which, meanwhile, has not even put up a single wind turbine itself, and under Biden, America almost went down this pernicious path, but Trump saved America, making it great again and free of wind turbines, and under him not a single wind turbine has been put up (to be honest, I was waiting for a rhyme about worms coming out of the ground, but no, they didn't make me happy).

Needless to say, in fact, first of all, China is a global leader in commissioning, including wind power generation, increasing it by about 15-20% per year and it is already about 600 GW. Standard nuclear power plant units, I remind you, are from 0.4 to 1 GW. Second, there are at least 23 new wind farm projects (which usually have double-digit numbers of wind turbines) launching in the US in 2025. Probably more, because the federal database only has information for the first Paul of the year so far. Yes, Trump, in one of his first executive orders, banned the issuance of permits for new wind farm projects, but that order was challenged in court and suspended as of December 10, and the federal government has received a slew of lawsuits for damages from states and companies.

These are just two easily verifiable examples - but it seems Trump doesn't just lie and don't blush, that would be okay, it seems he genuinely believes, if not everything, then much of what he says, and makes decisions based on his fanciful notions of reality. And it sounds like there is a culture in the current White House that doesn't find brave fools to tell their boss that he is deluded. Frankly, it's a somewhat intimidating picture.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor