Venezuela oil minister to U.S. companies: ‘It’s an entire world waiting to be discovered’

Venezuela’s new petroleum minister sees her South American home not as a dilapidated former oil giant, but as an emerging energy economy ripe for U.S. and foreign investments in new oil and gas exploration, both onshore and offshore.

Paula Henao, who took over as the hydrocarbons minister in March after the forced U.S. removal of former leader Nicolás Maduro, told an overflowing Houston energy audience on Wednesday that Venezuela is much more than just its famed heavy-grade crude oil. There are more than 916 exploration opportunities awaiting foreign investment, she said, including natural gas and other untapped oil basins. She cited an estimated 192 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves, as well as the country’s world-leading proven oil reserves of more than 300 billion barrels.

“It’s an entire world waiting to be discovered, just waiting for us to reach these agreements so we can develop these new areas,” Henao said in Spanish to the crowd at the posh Post Oak Hotel in Houston.

Henao and leaders of the Venezuelan state oil company, PDVSA, were in Houston this week for meetings and a showcase event in advance of a bigger Venezuela Energy Week in February in Caracas.

“Go to Venezuela to invest, go to Venezuela to develop businesses there,” said PDVSA Vice President Jovanny Martinez, also speaking in Spanish. “We are at the right place at this historical moment. We have the energy that the world requires.”

After decades of cycling between energy reform and renationalization, including the most recent 2007........

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