In short: The Donroe doctrine made concrete: "a Pentagon official said the US has taken a 35% equity stake… the company holding 100-year rights to 17 Venezuelan oil fields with an estimated 65 billion barrels," plus a right of first offer and 20% of output at cost. Not investable directly; his read is on Venezuela — "for right now, this is investable and things are happening."
NABEP is a private company holding 100-year rights to 17 Venezuelan oil fields, with an estimated 65 billion barrels of reserves. Polomny reports that the Pentagon has now taken a 35% ownership stake, plus the first right to buy its oil and the option to purchase a fifth of output at cost.
For him this is the "Donroe doctrine" — the US asserting control over its own hemisphere and pushing China, Russia and Iran out — turning from rhetoric into ownership. You can't buy NABEP, but he reads it as confirmation that Venezuelan oil redevelopment is "investable" through the listed companies that sign deals there. He disapproves of the policy but says the job is to position for what is happening, not what he would prefer.
40:17outcome. That's not saying that there's not potential in the United States. The United States still has a lot of potential in many places, but not everywhere. And so that's what I would do. And so this is what I was talking about. I'll put a link to this article. I think it's behind a paywall. It's a guy I follow that's based in Argentina. Maybe I'll reach out to this particular individual and
In short: Alejandro Betancourt's firm, today Venezuela's second-largest producer, granted a long-term lease on 65 billion barrels and planning up to $100B of spending — with the U.S. government taking a 35% equity stake, a right to buy 20% of output at cost and first refusal on the rest (finances run by the Department of War). The article's skepticism is explicit: the U.S. contributes no capital, so how the $100B gets raised "isn't clear"; Dan Pickering calls the economics "pretty murky" and notes lenders may balk at selling a fifth of production at no profit. A veteran analyst: "I would not [bank on] even an additional barrel of additional Venezuelan oil from anything else."
NABEP is a private Venezuelan company run by oil executive Alejandro Betancourt, and it is already the country's second-largest producer. Venezuela has just handed it a long-term lease over 65 billion barrels of reserves, and it says it will spend up to $100 billion developing them. Unusually, the U.S. government has taken a 35% ownership stake in the venture, plus the right to buy a fifth of the oil at cost and first refusal on the rest — with the money side run by the Department of War.
The article's problem with it is money, not politics. The U.S. is putting in a 35% claim but no cash, so nobody can explain where the $100 billion comes from. Dan Pickering of Pickering Energy Partners calls the economics "pretty murky," and makes the concrete point that banks may not want to lend against a project that must hand over 20% of its production at zero profit — that off-take sits ahead of the lenders in the queue, which is exactly what makes a loan unattractive.
The practical takeaway: reserves in the ground are not production, and a headline number of 65 billion barrels means nothing until someone funds the drilling. As one analyst puts it, he wouldn't bank on a single additional barrel from anything other than the operators already putting their own capital to work.
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Verbatim excerpts from the public transcripts (auto-pulled at each mention's timestamp, lightly cleaned). Timestamps link into the video; "source page" opens that commentator's full analysis at this row. Click a mention's header line to expand it (one open at a time). For personal study — not investment advice.