Is the West’s 100-Year Venezuela Oil Bet About To Backfire?

AI Summary

Halliburton and TotalEnergies have signed agreements tied to oil development in Venezuela, whose estimated crude reserves are the world's largest. The article questions whether Western investment in the country's oil sector could prove strategically risky.

Centuries ago, the untamed jungles of Venezuela’s Orinoco Basin helped power the myth of El Dorado, a city made entirely of gold. But for the new adventurers staking a claim in the country’s black gold instead, there is no myth involved, but rather the world’s largest crude oil reserves of 303 billion barrels. The latest two firms to sign agreements in this black gold rush are the U.S.’s Halliburton and France’s TotalEnergies, with each having played central roles in the West’s search to replace lost oil and…