Neil Shearing, group chief economist at Capital Economics, said Trump’s plans would have a limited impact on the global supply, and therefore price, of oil.
He said there are “an enormous number of hurdles to overcome and the timeframe of what is going to happen is so long” that oil prices in 2026 would likely see little change.
Mr Shearing said firms would not invest until a stable government is in place in Venezuela, and the projects would not deliver for “many, many years”.
“The issue has always been decades of underinvestment, mismanagement and it is really expensive to extract,” he said.
He added that even if the country could return to previous production levels of around three million barrels per day, it would still be outside the world’s top 10 producers.
And Mr Shearing pointed to high production among Opec+ countries, saying the world is currently “not suffering from a shortage of oil”.
The former chief executive of BP, Lord Browne, told the BBC that reviving Venezuela’s oil industry was a “very long term project”.
“People underestimate the time it takes to do things. Marshalling all the resources, the material and people in particular, takes a very long time.”
While there might be a “quick pick up” of some production, he added, output might actually fall while the industry is reorganising.
