Numerous countries have a history of nationalizing or appropriating foreign-owned oil assets in favor of state control, particularly from major Western multinational corporations. Major instances occurred primarily in the mid-to-late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Key examples of countries that have appropriated oil assets, and the entities affected, include:
Venezuela: In the 1970s and again in the 2000s under President Hugo Chávez, Venezuela nationalized its oil industry. Companies such as ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips had their assets seized after resisting demands to give majority control to the state-owned company Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA). Other companies, like Chevron, agreed to form joint ventures with minority stakes.
Mexico: The most famous early instance was in 1938 when President Lázaro Cárdenas expropriated the assets of nearly all foreign oil companies, including the Mexican Eagle Company (a subsidiary of Royal Dutch/Shell) and American firms like Jersey Standard and Standard Oil Company of California (now Chevron). This led to the creation of the state-owned company Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX).
Iran: The Iranian oil industry was nationalized in 1951, targeting the assets of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC, which later became BP). This resulted in an international boycott and a crisis, but the nationalization formally remained in effect. The industry was nationalized again after the 1979 revolution.
Iraq: The properties of the "Seven Sisters" major oil companies (which included British Petroleum, Shell, Exxon, Mobil, Chevron, Gulf, and Texaco) were fully nationalized in 1972.
Bolivia: Bolivia nationalized its oil production in 1937 and 1969.
Argentina: The nation's oil and natural gas resources were renationalized in 1958 and again in 2012 when the government seized a 51% stake in YPF from Spain's Repsol.
Libya: In 1970, the Libyan government used its leverage to restructure agreements and assert greater control over the operations of independent oil firms.
Saudi Arabia: The Saudi government gradually acquired full control of the Arabian American Oil Company (ARAMCO) from its American partners, completing the nationalization in 1980 and renaming it Saudi Aramco.
These actions were often driven by a desire for greater national control over natural resources and profits, which historically had largely benefited foreign investors and multinational corporations.
“For months, the U.S. sold its pressure campaign against Venezuela as a way to curtail drug trafficking. Now, it's about getting American energy companies access to one of the world's largest oil bounties.
The Trump administration's move to oust Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro in a surprise military operation early Saturday will pave the way for U.S. oil companies to regain a foothold in the South American nation, President Trump said at a Mar-a-Lago press conference.
But getting foreign companies to flock back to Venezuela will be a massive challenge. Chevron is the only major U.S. oil company there and is the nation's largest foreign investor.
Other oil executives will be forced to gauge the stability on the ground in a country where the industry has fallen into disarray after more than two decades of mismanagement and corruption.
Chevron and other U.S. oil-and-gas companies didn't get advance notice of the U.S. incursion or the Trump administration's broader Venezuela strategy, according to people familiar with the matter.
The other obstacle facing Trump's effort to put more of Venezuela's viscous crude into the global market is that the world doesn't have much of an appetite for more oil. U.S. oil prices are languishing below $60 a barrel, a level that discourages investment for most American producers. Global supplies are expected to continue rising this year.
"One thing that works against it is the price of oil," said Ali Moshiri, the former head of Chevron's operations in Latin America and Africa. "In the environment we're in, if you're going to invest, do you put it in the Permian [Basin in the U.S.] or do you put it in Venezuela? That's going to be a tough choice."
The U.S. hasn't detailed the mechanics of how it would bring more American oil companies into Venezuela to boost production. Analysts say it could facilitate a process that would allow companies to bid for oil and gas blocks and question whether European companies could also bid for the right to enter the country.
Chevron said in a statement Saturday that it is focused on the safety of its employees and the integrity of its assets in the country. The company and its joint ventures employ about 3,000 people there.
Venezuela has produced some 900,000 barrels of oil a day this year, with Chevron pumping about one-third of that.
The type of crude Venezuela produces is thicker than most oil consumed on the global market, and refiners from the U.S. Gulf Coast to China and India can wring more profit out of it than other grades of crude, making it highly attractive for fuel makers.
In the U.S., the shale boom unleashed record levels of oil production, but the kind of oil American frackers are pumping doesn't work as well as heavy crude produced in Venezuela, Canada and Mexico.
Venezuela's government says its proved oil reserves top 300 billion barrels, which, if true, would make its bounty the world's largest.
Other big oil companies that are potentially interested in re-entering Venezuela will almost certainly take time to evaluate the situation because the country has a track record of appropriating oil assets, as it did in the 1970s and the 2000s, analysts said.
ConocoPhillips and Exxon Mobil pulled out of Venezuela in 2007 after then-President Hugo Chavez nationalized their assets. Conoco later sued the Venezuelan government for more than $20 billion; Exxon sued for $12 billion. The companies were awarded fractions of their losses in protracted arbitration.
A Conoco spokesman said the company is monitoring developments in Venezuela. "It would be premature to speculate on any future business activities or investments," he said in a statement. Exxon didn't respond to requests to comment.
"Oil companies always want oil, and Venezuela has a lot of it," said Jose Ignacio Hernandez, a law professor, consultant and public-debt expert at Aurora Macro Strategies. "But they need political stability, which requires more than just removing Maduro. The situation is still ongoing."
Orlando Ochoa, a Caracas-based economist and a visiting fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, described the Herculean task of jump-starting the moribund energy industry, which has seen tens of thousands of trained professionals flee the country under Maduro's authoritarian rule.
He said that includes drafting a broad economic stabilization plan to attract the financing Venezuela badly needs from multilateral lenders to rebuild infrastructure and rusted oil-field installations. Local laws need to be modified to allow private energy firms to operate without state overreach, he added. And the government has to restructure some $160 billion in debt and settle pending arbitration cases with foreign companies to convince them to come back.
"What the U.S. needs to do is to implement a form of a Marshall Plan," said Ochoa, referring to the economic program that helped rebuild Europe after World War II. "This is about much more than coming into the oil and gas sector just to extract crude from the ground."
One American oil executive with a long history of working in Venezuela said the U.S. government may have done the easy part by removing Maduro. But it remains to be seen whether a transitional government could grant the security and stability needed for foreign oil companies to return to Venezuela en masse, the executive said.
Saturday, as questions were emerging about how Venezuela's government would function and America's role in the country, Trump kept turning back to the country's oil.
"We are going to be taking out a tremendous amount of wealth out of the ground," Trump said during a press conference. He added that the U.S. would keep some of the proceeds "in the form of reimbursement for the damages caused us by that country."
For years, Trump has said the U.S. should have laid claim to other countries' oil as part of incursions in Syria, Libya and Iraq, either to pay for military costs or to offset adversaries' influence.” [1]
1. Energy Companies To Face a Challenge Mining Nation's Oil. Eaton, Collin; Vyas, Kejal; Uberti, David. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 05 Jan 2026: A1.
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