Shale billionaire and Continental Resources founder Harold Hamm says Venezuela is a much safer place without President Nicolás Maduro in power, but oil companies still need security guarantees.

Caracas

The U.S has launched strikes on sites inside Venezuela, including military facilities and arrested Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro along wife his wife.

Venezuela Strikes

Harold Hamm, founder and chairman of Continental Resources, stated that Venezuela has become a much safer environment for investment following the removal of its former leader, whom he referred to as a 'narco-terrorist.' Hamm discussed the country's significant oil resources and the renewed interest from international oil companies, while emphasizing the importance of evaluating geopolitical risks and market stability before making investment decisions.

Hamm also addressed the technical and logistical challenges of extracting and marketing Venezuelan crude, noting that development would be slow due to the heavy nature of the oil and the need for substantial upgrading. He cautioned that while Venezuela presents opportunities, risks such as nationalization remain, and the impact on U.S. shale production is likely to be limited in the near term.

Venezuela much safer without Maduro, Hamm says

Elsewhere the u.s. Is officially selling venezuelan crew multiple outlets reporting the trump administration has completed its first sale head of a meeting with The venezuelan opposition leader later on today harold ham the founder and chairman of continental Resources the largest privately held oil and natural gas producer in the world joins us now i should add harold American energy legend pioneer of fracking gonna make you sound like a sports star it's good to see you sir i know You, had a meeting with the president just last week alongside other energy executives can You, give us your impression of what things sounded like, and the opportunities available in a place like venezuela Well certainly there's a lot of resource and venezuelan as everyone knows and and so it's a Much, safer place today as a Result of the president's actions trust the president You know and taking out this Narco-terrorist it's a great move and in this western hemisphere and Good things will come from it We're already seeing some of those develop and yes it was a very interesting meeting There's a lot of oil company executives look at the possibilities in venezuela and assess those Harold are you looking at the possibilities how interested are you in bringing continental to venezuela You know as i've told the president you know continental has a a policy of first of all looking at these Market entries and if and wherever we go You know it doesn't matter if it's turkey or argentina That we've been public With our entry there but looking first at the credibility the geopolitics Looking at the stability of the country and and what the future like looks like and so we've certainly done that And doing that here, but first of all look at the rock quality and whether it's worth going there period from a resource standpoint and and venezuela to meet that criteria, but you know look at the overall Geopolitical situation what what that's going to look like in the future so That's that's what i've you know related to the president And i think a lot of other executives did the same thing harold what about looking at the price of oil where it sits right? Now what oil price do you need to see in order to say have this adventure in venezuela then just drilling more in the united states Well you know we say that the best cure for low prices You know it's low prices. You know it cures it and brings the price back for It's a sustainable in the future and and certainly you can't produce crude below the cost of production and you know we know that and and certainly it's very cheap and You know we we think some things ought to be done in us like refilling the spr for instance While while crude is so cheap we ought to be doing that kind is doing that They're ramping up their storage Two billion barrels and the u.s. Should be doing things like that While we're in this cheap market Do you have an outlook on where prices are going given the fact that we do see we're going to be in a glut there Are these reserves in venezuela, but at the same time there's geopolitical concerns in the middle east There's a lot of geopolitical risk and in venezuela Certainly we've seen Companies that darren woods said exxon had been there twice and been nationalized You don't want to go there and spend a lot of money and and see your assets go away when Nationalization occurs, so you know there's got to be guarantees against that We've seen other country companies burned real bad there, so those those things certainly resonate and You know you take that in consideration for you to enter a country Are you concerned that the development of venezuela that the focus by the us on more supply from opec will hurt the u.s? Shale industry significantly over a longer period of time I Think it could but I think it's Going to be so slow in development You know it's going to take a long time. This is a Rough material that comes out of there. It's a you know basically bitumen tar 9-degree gravity crude Takes a lot of upgrading To get it to where you can market it and in fact even move it It takes required diluent You know condensate mix with it to move it So there's there's a lot of challenges a lot of resource, but a lot of challenges, so it's not going to come on very quickly So I think as far as the risk to American crude There's a lot of a lot of risk in the world, but I would I would say that's a lower risk than a lot of people are imagining

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Venezuela much safer without Maduro, Hamm says

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Venezuela Strikes