U.S. oil stocks explode after Trump's actions, comments on Venezuela

Investing.com -- Oil stocks rose sharply on Monday after U.S. President Donald Trump said Venezuela’s removal from Nicolas Maduro’s rule could unlock access to the country’s massive oil resources, potentially altering global energy dynamics.

Speaking publicly, Trump argued that American oil companies would play a central role in reviving Venezuela’s energy sector.

“We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure and start making money for the country,” he said.

“They were pumping almost nothing by comparison to what they could have been,” Trump added.

Shares in Chevron climbed more than 6%, while Exxon Mobil rose over 3% by 09:27 GMT. SLB surged nearly 8%, with Halliburton and ConocoPhillips each gaining around 7%.

Valero Energy advanced roughly 6%, and Baker Hughes rose about 6.7%.

Oil prices, however, moved lower on Monday, with ample global supply offsetting concerns about potential disruptions following Maduro’s capture.

Brent crude futures fell 0.6% to $60.38, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude slid 0.7% to $56.92.

Trump’s remarks followed a surprise operation early Saturday in which U.S. armed forces and law enforcement detained Maduro and carried out strikes in parts of Caracas. The president said the U.S. would temporarily “run” Venezuela but provided few details on how that would work or who would be involved.

Venezuela holds the world’s largest proven oil reserves, estimated at roughly 300 billion barrels by the Energy Institute, surpassing even Saudi Arabia. Despite that scale, restoring production would be a lengthy and capital-intensive process.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) has said years of work and substantial investment would be needed to modernize aging infrastructure, a challenge compounded by political uncertainty.

Chevron is currently the only major U.S. oil company operating in Venezuela, producing heavy crude for U.S. Gulf Coast refineries.

Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips previously had major operations there before nationalizations under former president Hugo Chavez.

“We built Venezuela’s oil industry with American talent, drive, skill, and the socialist regime stole it from us,” Trump said, calling it “one of the largest thefts of American property in the history of our country.”

He confirmed that the U.S. embargo on Venezuelan oil remains unchanged.

“They stole our oil,” Trump said. “They took it over like it was nothing.”

China remains Venezuela’s largest oil customer, though opaque trading makes volumes difficult to verify. Any U.S. push into Venezuela’s oil sector could heighten tensions with Beijing, which has already condemned Maduro’s removal.

Decades of underinvestment have left Venezuela’s oil infrastructure badly degraded. Many pipelines are more than 50 years old, according to the EIA, which estimates that restoring output even to 1990s levels would require more than $8 billion in investment.

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