US Energy Secretary Chris Wright visits Venezuela to assess oil industry overhaul

United States Energy Secretary Chris Wright has arrived in Venezuela for a firsthand assessment of the country's oil industry, a visit that further asserts the US government's self-appointed role in turning around Venezuela's dilapidated energy sector. Wright met Venezuela's acting President Delcy Rodríguez at the Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas on Wednesday. He is expected to meet with government officials, oil executives and others during a three-day visit to the South American country. Briefing the press after the meeting with Rodríguez, Wright told reporters Trump is ''passionately committed... to transforming Venezuela'' and to bring ''commerce, peace, prosperity, jobs, opportunity to the people of Venezuela''. He did not take questions from the journalists. Wright's visit comes as the administration of US President Donald Trump continues to lift sanctions to allow foreign companies to operate in Venezuela and help rebuild the nation's most important industry. It follows last month's enactment of a Venezuelan law that opened the nation's oil sector to private investment, reversing a tenet of the self-proclaimed socialist movement that has ruled the country for more than two decades. Rodríguez was sworn into her new role after the brazen January 3 seizure of then-president Nicolás Maduro in a US military attack in Venezuela's capital, Caracas. She proposed the overhaul of the country's energy law after Trump said his administration would take control of Venezuela's oil exports and revitalize the ailing industry by luring foreign investment. Rodríguez's government expects the changes to serve as assurances for major US oil companies that have so far hesitated about returning to the volatile country. Some of those companies lost investments when the ruling party enacted the existing law two decades ago to favour Venezuela's state-run oil company, PDVSA. The new law now grants private companies control over oil production and sales, ending PDVSA's monopoly over those activities as well as pricing. It also allows for independent arbitration of disputes, removing a mandate for disagreements to be settled only in Venezuelan courts, which are controlled by the ruling party. Foreign investors view the involvement of independent arbitrators as crucial to guard against future expropriation.