Good morning, friends —
As you know, I typically wouldn’t send two emails within a week.
But it’s also not often that the U.S. effectively “takes over” another country… and then the oil market immediately has to digest it. Over the weekend, the U.S. intervened in Venezuela and moved to halt Venezuelan oil shipments. The practical result so far: ships aren’t leaving like normal, storage is filling up, and Venezuela’s state oil company has reportedly started cutting production because there’s nowhere to put the barrels.
So if your first thought was “Venezuela opens up → more oil → cheaper oil,” I get it… but that’s not what today looks like.
Here’s the simple way to think about it:
Short run (weeks): less oil moving around = more volatility (and potentially higher prices).
Long run (months/years): if Venezuela truly stabilizes and outside capital is allowed back in, you could eventually get more supply — but only after a rebuild.
And that rebuild is the part most investors miss.
The market angle in plain English
Venezuela’s oil industry isn’t a light switch. It’s more like an old factory that’s been neglected for years.
Even if the political situation improves, production doesn’t snap back overnight. It takes:
- equipment and maintenance
- service crews and technology
- ports, pipelines, power, and facility work
So the “winners” usually aren’t the speculative names.
They’re:
- the high-quality operator with the cleanest path to benefit early, and
- the companies that get paid to rebuild the machine.
Two names we like
Chevron (CVX)
If this theme plays out, CVX is the low-hanging fruit.
Why? Chevron has already been the main U.S. “bridge” into Venezuela under prior authorization frameworks. If rules loosen over time (even partially), the companies already in the system tend to benefit first — and CVX is the cleanest, highest-quality way to express that.
Schlumberger (SLB)
If Venezuela becomes a real rebuild story, the oil doesn’t come back without work crews, services, and execution.
That’s why SLB is the second-order winner we like most. They’re built for complex international projects — and a Venezuela rebuild would be exactly that: messy, long-cycle, and capex-heavy.
The names with potentially more upside
We like CVX and SLB a lot. But if things play out like we think they may, there are a few other names that could offer more upside — specifically, certain public engineering / infrastructure companies that could be directly involved in the build-out (ports, pipelines, facilities, modernization, and the boring-but-critical work that actually gets production rising again).
If you’re a current client, know that we’re actively reviewing portfolios to see whether taking a position in any of these makes sense based on your objectives and risk profile.
If you’re not a client, give us a shout and we can discuss what we’re watching and how we’d think about positioning.
JC
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Disclosure / Important Notes: This commentary is provided for general informational purposes only and should not be construed as personalized investment advice, a solicitation, or an offer to buy or sell any security. Any opinions are as of today (Monday, January 5, 2026) and may change without notice. Investing involves risk, including the potential loss of principal. RollingWave Capital, LLC is a registered investment advisor; please review our Disclosure Statement for additional information.