Patrick Pouyanne, chief executive officer of TotalEnergies SE, during the Conference de Paris, organized by the International Economic Forum of the Americas (IEFA) in Paris, France, on Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025.
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The CEO of French energy major TotalEnergies said it was “too expensive and too polluting” to return to Venezuela, despite calls from U.S. President Donald Trump for Big Oil to invest billions in the country.
The company quit Venezuela in 2022 but the Trump administration has urged oil majors to return since the U.S. military operation to seize the country’s president, Nicolás Maduro, on Jan. 3.
Speaking on Wednesday, TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanné told reporters the company quit the country “because it clashed with our strategy. It was too expensive and too polluting and that is still the case.” The comments were reported by Reuters.
A spokesperson for TotalEnergies was not immediately available for comment when contacted by CNBC.
The Trump administration has called on U.S. energy giants to invest $100 billion to rebuild Venezuela’s oil industry.
Trump has pledged to support American oil companies that invest in Venezuela with government security assistance, saying last month that energy firms previously had problems “because they didn’t have Trump as a president.”
Venezuela boasts the world’s largest oil reserves but some U.S. oil firms have expressed caution about rushing to re-enter — including Exxon Mobil.
Exxon CEO Darren Woods recently made headlines for saying at a White House meeting with Trump that the Venezuelan market is “uninvestable” in its current state.
Trump subsequently lashed out at Woods, threatening to sideline the oil giant and accusing the company of “playing too cute.”
‘Infrastructure constraints’
TotalEnergies started operating in Venezuela in the 1990s. Its departure followed a strategic shift away from heavy and high-sulfur crude and amid safety concerns. Pouyanné has previously said that Venezuela is not high on the firm’s agenda.
“There are infrastructure constraints, a lot of them,” Amar Singh, global crude oil markets analyst at Barclays, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Wednesday, when asked about Venezuela’s investment case.
This view shows electrical towers on one of the streets in Maracaibo, Venezuela on February 1, 2026.
Maryorin Mendez | Afp | Getty Images
“But even before we get to that point of the conversation, we first need to see what is going on with the regime change. How quickly can we transition to a democratic system?” Singh said.
“We have seen some reforms already, but this is a long process and, in our view, even if everything goes smooth, the most optimistic scenario we only see Venezuelan output growing by 200,000 to 300,000 barrels per day by the end of this year,” he added.
TotalEnergies on Wednesday reported a slight drop in fourth-quarter profit and reduced share buybacks amid a weaker crude price environment.
Shares of the Paris-listed company rose nearly 2% during morning deals, notching a new 52-week high.
