President Donald Trump said the United States could get Venezuela’s oil industry back on track in less than 18 months, but that rebuilding the heavily degraded infrastructure would require significant investment. 

Trump said “very large” American oil companies would invest billions of dollars to repair the country’s oil fields, adding in a Monday interview with NBC News that the U.S. government could reimburse companies. He said the process could be completed in less than a year and a half. 

“I think we can do it in less time than that, but it’ll be a lot of money,” Trump said. “A tremendous amount of money will have to be spent and the oil companies will spend it, and then they’ll get reimbursed by us or through revenue.”

After announcing the capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro, Trump said the country’s oil industry had been a “bust,” producing only a fraction of its potential output.

Trump has not specified which oil companies would invest, but said he has spoken to several that are interested. He said that restoring oil production in Venezuela would benefit Americans by lowering energy costs. 

While Venezuelan oil production once reached 3.5 million barrels per day, it drastically declined in 2007 after the industry was nationalized under former Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez. It is estimated that Venezuela’s oil reserves account for about 17% of the world’s supply, according to the New York Post. 

In the same interview with NBC, Trump said that there likely wouldn’t be an election in Venezuela in the next month. 

“We have to fix the country first. You can’t have an election. There’s no way the people could even vote,” he said. “No, it’s going to take a period of time. We have to nurse the country back to health.”

Trump said Secretary of State Marco Rubio, War Secretary Pete Hegseth, Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, and Vice President JD Vance would oversee his administration’s involvement in Venezuela.

Trump and senior administration officials said the United States is not at war with Venezuela.

“No, we’re not,” Trump said. “We’re at war with people that sell drugs. We’re at war with people that empty their prisons into our country and empty their drug addicts and empty their mental institutions into our country.”