MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
After days of speculation, the White House has confirmed which company it will work with to develop a vast amount of Venezuela's oil reserves. Energy experts tell NPR they are skeptical that this company and the person behind it are up to the task. NPR energy and climate correspondent Julia Simon is following developments and joins us now. Hey there, Julia.
JULIA SIMON, BYLINE: Hello, Mary Louise.
KELLY: So the Trump administration announced this Venezuela deal late Friday. The new twist is they have now confirmed which company is involved. What is it?
SIMON: Yeah. The company is called North American Blue Energy Partners. It's an oil company. They do exploration and production. It's headquartered in Barbados with corporate offices in Venezuela. Behind the company is 46-year-old Alejandro Betancourt. He has faced multiple investigations in Spain, Switzerland and the U.S. for money laundering. He has not been formally charged.
KELLY: OK. So some questions there. Also, I gather a lot of questions about just how this joint venture is going to work.
SIMON: Yes. That's an understatement. There are just a lot of questions. The Trump administration says the U.S. would get 55% of the oil from the joint venture. They say that's equivalent to about 65 billion barrels of oil that's under the ground. But of course, there's the fact that the U.S. doesn't have a national oil company, Mary Louise. We don't have a Saudi Aramco like Saudi Arabia.
KELLY: Right.
SIMON: So to develop this Venezuelan oil, the U.S. is presumably going to rely a lot on their partner. But I've talked to a lot of oil analysts, and they are aware of North American Blue Energy Partners. It is an oil operator in Venezuela, but it's unclear if the company has ever developed a new oil field, particularly a new, so-called Faja field. That's the super-thick peanut butter-like oil in Venezuela. Here's Gerald Kepes. He's a geologist and the president of Competitive Energy Strategies, an energy consultancy in D.C.
GERALD KEPES: What they are is a production company, which is not a bad thing, but there's no question they have zero experience in terms of developing new Faja-type oil deposits.
SIMON: And I should say that we reached out to North American Blue Energy Partners, and they did not respond to our request for comment.
KELLY: So I'm wondering - it sounds like this company may need some help to develop these oil fields. Is there...
SIMON: Right.
KELLY: ...Discussion about other oil companies jumping in, trying to partner with them?
SIMON: We reached out to Chevron and didn't hear back. ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil declined to comment. Kepes thinks that many international oil companies may be wary of partnering with this joint venture with the U.S. government given the reputational risks and legal uncertainties. We should note Chevron is expected to make an announcement tomorrow that they are expanding operations in Venezuela. But, Mary Louise, that doesn't seem to be related to this deal.
KELLY: One other thing I'm wondering about the relevance of - the war that Israel and the U.S. started with Iran has left the Trump administration with high gas prices and midterms looming. We know today the president's meeting with oil and gas retailers and refineries. Is any of that connected with this new joint venture in Venezuela?
SIMON: Well, President Trump has said on Truth Social that this deal would lower gas prices. He clearly wants that. But again, energy experts keep beating the drum, which is, it's the geology. Many of these fields are still largely undeveloped. They will take time to get to market. So the idea that this deal will impact gas prices anytime soon, they say, is absurd.
KELLY: NPR's Julia Simon, thank you.
SIMON: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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