Several years ago, I received a call from a good friend of mine, Dr. Dennis O’Brien who was serving at time as Director of Economic Policy at The University of Oklahoma’s Sarkeys Energy Center. (Dennis had served as an executive in the oil and gas industry and had held a subcabinet U. S. Department of Energy post. Therefore, he had access to many global energy leaders.)
Dennis asked me if I would be interested in having the president of PDVSA, the national company of Venezuela, be a featured speaker at the International Energy Policy Conference which I chaired and founded. I was definitely excited about the opportunity and the president of PDVSA did speak at the conference.
The tensions between the US and Venezuela have dramatically increased since then. For a few years, I was able to maintain contact with representatives of PDVSA. Communication was cut off during the leadership of Venezuela’s leader Hugo Chavez.
With Mr. Chavez’s recent death, comes the opportunity for Venezuela to regain its full energy potential. It will take years to do so, but it is extremely needed.
Chavez caused firings of many highly qualified petroleum professionals, some of which I knew, and he was not an effective energy leader. It should be noted that Chavez’s leadership or lack of caused ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips for example to leave Venezuela in 2007.
Venezuela reportedly has one of the world’s largest oil reserves but the output has declined to 2.5 million barrels per day.
We will wait and see if US companies are once again allowed to be a major force in oil exploration in Venezuela. In the meantime, we will stay focused: U. S. Energy Independence Means Jobs, Security and Economic Development and America Needs America’s Energy!
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