President Donald Trump’s promise to revive the Venezuelan oil industry drew praise from U.S. energy executives on Friday — but no firm commitments to invest the vast sums of money needed to bring the country’s oil output back from the doldrums.

The lack of firm pledges from the heads of the companies such as Exxon Mobil, Chevron and ConocoPhillips that Trump summoned to the White House raised doubts about the president’s claim that U.S. oil producers were ready to spend $100 billion or more to rebuild Venezuela’s crude oil infrastructure. The country boasts the world’s largest oil reserves, but its production has cratered since the regime pushed most of those companies out decades ago.

Exxon CEO Darren Woods offered the starkest assessment, telling Trump in the live-streamed meeting in the East Room that Venezuela is “uninvestable” under current conditions. He said major changes were needed before his company would return to the country, and that big questions remain about what return Exxon could expect from any investments.

“If we look at the legal and commercial constructs and frameworks in place today in Venezuela today, it’s uninvestable,” Woods told Trump. “Significant changes have to be made to those commercial frameworks, the legal system. There has to be durable investment protections, and there has to be a change to the hydrocarbon laws in the country.”

Still, Woods said he was confident the U.S. can help make those changes, and said he expected Exxon could put a technical team on the ground in Venezuela soon to assess the state of its oil infrastructure.

Harold Hamm, a fracking executive and major Trump ally, expressed more enthusiasm but still fell short of making any commitments.

“It excites me as an explorationist,” Hamm, whose experience has centered on oil production inside the U.S., said of the opportunity to invest in Venezuela. “It is a very exciting country and a lot of reserves — it’s got its challenges and the industry knows how to handle that.”

Still, Energy Secretary Chris Wright pointed reporters after the meeting to a statement from Chevron — the only major U.S. oil company still operating in Venezuela — that it was ready to raise its output as a concrete sign the industry was willing to put more money into the country.

Chevron currently produces about 240,000 barrels a day there with its partner, the Venezuelan state-run oil company Petróleos de Venezuela SA.

Mark Nelson, Chevron’s vice chairman, told the gathering the company sees “a path forward” to increase production from its existing operations by 50 percent over the next 18 to 24 months. He did not commit to a dollar figure, however.

Wright indicated that the $100 billion figure cited by Trump on Thursday was an estimate for the cost of reconstructing Venezuela’s dilapidated oil sector — rather than a firm spending commitment made by producing companies.

“If you look at what’s a positive trajectory for Venezuela’s oil industry in the next decade, that’s probably going to take about $100 billion investment,” said Wright, who later told Bloomberg Television he is likely to travel to Venezuela “before too long.”

Most of the nearly two dozen companies in attendance at Friday’s meeting expressed tepid support for the administration’s plan, though others indicated they were eager to jump back quickly.

Wael Sawan, the CEO of the European energy giant Shell, said the company had been pushed out in Venezuela’s nationalization program in the 1970s, giving up 1 million barrels per day of oil production. Now it was seeking U.S. permits to go back, he said.

“We are ready to go and looking forward to the investment in support of the Venezuelan people,” he said.

Jeffery Hildebrand, CEO of independent oil and gas producer Hilcorp Energy and a major Trump donor, said his company was “fully committed and ready to go to rebuild the infrastructure in Venezuela.”

Trump said during the meeting that companies that invest in Venezuela would be assured “total safety, total security,” without the U.S. government spending taxpayer dollars or putting boots on the ground. He indicated that Venezuela would provide security for the U.S. companies, and that the companies would bring their own protection as well.

“These are tough people. They go into areas that you wouldn’t want to go. They go into areas that if they invited me, I’d say, ‘No, thanks. I’ll see you back in Palm Beach,’” Trump said of the oil companies.

Before the executives spoke, Trump insisted that oil executives are lining up to take the administration up on the opportunity. “If you don’t want to go in, just let me know,” he said. “There are 25 people not here today willing to take your place.”

Following the public meeting, the companies stayed for further discussions with administration officials behind closed doors.

The president also dismissed speculation that the administration may offer financial guarantees to back up what he acknowledged would be a risky investment.

“I hope I don’t have to give a backstop,” he said. “These are the biggest companies in the world sitting around this table — they know the risks.”

Trump also laughed off the billions that Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips are owed for the assets seized by the Venezuelan regime decades ago. “Nice write-off,” he quipped.

“You’ll get a lot of your money back,” Trump told ConocoPhillips CEO Ryan Lance. “We’re going to start with an even plate, though — we’re not going to look at what people lost in the past because that was their fault.”

ConocoPhillips spokesperson Dennis Nuss said in a statement that Lance “appreciates today’s valuable opportunity to engage with President Trump in a discussion about preparing Venezuela to be investment ready.”

The White House at the last minute shifted the meeting from a closed-door session in the Cabinet Room to a live-televised spectacle in the East Room. “Everybody wants to be there,” the president wrote of the oil executives on social media just ahead of the meeting.

POLITICO reported on Thursday that the White House had scrambled to invite additional companies to the meeting because of skepticism from the top oil majors about reentering the country. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent acknowledged in an appearance Thursday that “big oil companies who move slowly … are not interested,” but said the administration’s “phones are ringing off the hook” with calls from smaller players.

Bethany Williams, a spokesperson for the American Petroleum Institute, called Friday’s meeting “a constructive, initial conversation that highlighted both the energy potential and the challenges presented in Venezuela, including the importance of rule of law, security, and stable governance.”

Venezuela — even with strongman Nicolás Maduro in custody in New York — remains under the rule of the same socialist government that appropriated the rigs, pipelines and property of foreign oil companies two decades ago. Questions remain about who would guarantee the companies’ workers’ safety, particularly since Trump has publicly ruled out sending in troops.

Kevin Book, a managing director at the energy research firm ClearView Energy Partners, noted that few CEOs in the meeting outright rejected the notion of returning to or investing in Venezuela, instead couching any sort of presence on several conditions. Some of those might be nearer term, such as security guarantees. Others, like reestablishing legal stability in Venezuela, appear more distant.

“They need to understand the risk and they need to understand the return,” Book said. “What it sounded like most of the companies were saying … is that they want to understand the risk and the return and then they’ll look at the investment.”

Evanan Romero, a Houston-based oil consultant involved in the Trump administration’s effort to bring U.S. oil producers back to Venezuela, said international oil companies will not return to the country under the same laws and government that expropriated their assets decades earlier.

“The main contribution that [interim president] Delcy [Rodríguez] and her government can do is make a bonfire of those laws and put it on fire in the Venezuelan Bolivar Square,” Romero said. “With those, we cannot do any reconstruction of the oil industry.”

Zack Colman and Irie Sentner contributed to this report.