Shell has entered the chat…
After years of sanctions, paperwork hell, and pretending Venezuela didn’t exist, Big Oil suddenly smells money again. Specifically: gas money. Lots of it. Like “$500 million a year for three decades” money.
(Source: Giphy)
In short, Shell is eyeing the Dragon gas field. A stupidly large slab of natural gas sitting in Venezuelan waters, just offshore from Trinidad. We’re talking 120 billion cubic meters of gas. That’s roughly three UKs worth of annual consumption just chilling under the seabed, untouched, because geopolitics is a nightmare. So what changed? Trump happened, obvi.
Since Maduro officially “F’d around and found out”, Washington is flipping the sanctions switch. the message went out loud and clear: come get your barrels. Trump’s been openly telling oil companies to roll in, rebuild the infrastructure, and start pumping like it’s 1999 again. Chevron’s already inside. Shell and BP are hovering like vultures and licking their chops. That said, the other part no one wants to say out loud is that this absolutely nukes OPEC’s alpha persona.
(Source: Yahoo Finance)
For instance, OPEC’s whole thing is control. Tight supply. Gentle scarcity. Price discipline. Which means, Venezuela coming back online… especially with U.S. backing… is the opposite of that. It’s chaos supply and barrels nobody budgeted for. And most of all, it’s Saudi Arabia’s getting a worse POV than the Roblox girl.
Keep in mind, oil already dropped 18% in 2025, the worst year since the pandemic, and that was before Venezuela got invited back to the party. If even 1–2 million barrels a day hit the market, OPEC’s grip goes from “fragile” to “lol.” And yet, this is exactly why Gulf states are nervous. Cheap oil doesn’t just hit margins… it hits lifestyles. We’re talking subsidies, budgets, political calm… and all of that assumes oil prices behave. But Trump’s gonna Trump. The Don wants cheap energy, leverage, and control. And Venezuela gives him all three. “Murica!
(Source: Republic World)
As for Shell, they are doing classic Big Oil math. They won’t lead, but they will follow. U.S. majors go first, take the political heat, then invite Europeans in later to spread risk and write checks. Joint ventures. Plausible deniability. Everyone gets paid. The irony though is that Venezuela has the largest oil reserves on Earth and barely cracks the top 20 in production. Years of mismanagement turned a geological cheat code into a rusted mess. Fixing it takes billions, time, and a tolerance for chaos. Trump seems fine with that. Markets… we’ll see.
The bottom line here is that Venezuela isn’t a feel-good reopening story. It’s a supply shock waiting to happen. One that could blow a hole in OPEC’s pricing power and keep oil cheaper for longer… whether producers like it or not. Meaning, keep your eyes on this story as we head into this week's trading and place your bets accordingly, Until next time, friends…
At the time of publishing, Stocks.News does not hold positions in companies mentioned in the article.
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