Conoco's long shadow in Venezuela

ConocoPhillips is weighing calls from US President Donald Trump for American oil producers to commit large-scale investment to Venezuela, a country where the company has a long record of political risk, financial disputes and personal danger, according to executives and former managers.

The Houston-based group was among the earliest Western firms to enter Venezuela after partial market openings in the 1990s, but its operations were later dismantled following a state takeover of foreign oil assets, The Wall Street Journal reported.

It remains the country’s largest non-sovereign creditor and is seeking to recover about $12bn, after refusing to accept revised terms under a nationalisation drive ordered by then-president Hugo Chávez in 2007.

That history includes a 2002 kidnapping of Roger Ramshaw, then head of Conoco’s Venezuela unit, shortly after he arrived in Caracas with his wife.

A gunman forced the executive to drive to his apartment to hand over cash and valuables in exchange for his wife's release. “It’s one of these traumatic experiences,” Ramshaw said. “It takes a while to get over it.”

ConocoPhillips’ chief executive Ryan Lance said earlier this month that the company had suffered under Chávez’s rule.

“We’ve been on the other end of that despot regime a long time,” he told a White House meeting with Trump.

The president later dismissed expectations of compensation for all past losses, saying to Lance at a White House meeting, “You’ll get a lot of your money back,” Trump told “We’re going to start with an even plate, though — we’re not going to look at what people lost in the past because that was their fault.”

Ramshaw joined Conoco in Venezuela in 1999, the year Chávez took office, overseeing Petrozuata, a $2.4bn heavy-oil venture with state company PDVSA in the Orinoco Belt.

“Conoco was seeking legacy projects,” Ramshaw said. “Projects that had a 35–40 year life and would keep giving a steady earning stream over that period.”

The company expanded further after merging with Phillips Petroleum in 2002, employing hundreds directly and several thousand indirectly.

Political pressure later stalled expansion plans, and ConocoPhillips exited rather than accept minority stakes and lower compensation.

Following the kidnapping, Ramshaw said “Conoco went into a bit of panic mode,” and he was assigned a bodyguard. He left the company in 2003.

People familiar with ConocoPhillips say it has other investment options in the United States, Alaska and Qatar. Former finance chief Don Wallette said “the bar’s likely higher” for Venezuela. "Their main interest is probably recovering what they are owed.”

The company said it is monitoring developments and added: “We look forward to working with the Trump administration on energy policies that promote stability and benefit both the Venezuelan and American people.”