Tim Moorehead

🚨Even as TDS-afflicted critics of the U.S.-Venezuela opening act out on X, the people who actually know how to find, produce, and deliver oil are doing what they always do: following the resource. Major oil companies - @Chevron, @BP, @Shell, and Repsol, to name a few - and the two biggest oilfield service companies, @Halliburton and #SLB (Schlumberger), are actively renewing or expanding their asset and operational holdings in Venezuela. That is the story the markets and the rigs are telling, not the one coming from the peanut gallery. #Venezuela still holds the world’s largest proven crude reserves. Years of underinvestment, mismanagement, and sanctions left production far below potential. The companies that stayed or are now coming back are not doing it for a press release. They are doing it because the prize is enormous and the work is real. Key points: •Chevron already operates three joint ventures with PDVSA and is the only major U.S. producer with an active presence. It is now close to adding two more heavy-oil fields, a move that lines up with U.S. demand for heavy crude at Gulf Coast refineries. •Halliburton is in talks to supply equipment and services. Many of the offered fields are undeveloped greenfields that lack basic infrastructure. Restoring them will take billions, and that is exactly the work oilfield services companies exist to do. •SLB has signed oil-related agreements with Venezuela, including work on two fields and a framework deal for integrated reservoir studies nationwide. It expects to reactivate as many as 15 rigs already in country. After scaling back during the 2016 debt crisis, SLB kept a local footprint and continued serving Chevron. That presence is now a competitive edge. •BP and Shell have already signed deals to re-enter. That expands the customer base for the service companies and signals that more than one major sees the same opportunity. •Executives from several companies are expected in Caracas next week to sign production agreements, with Energy Secretary Chris Wright also expected to attend. This is not a rumor mill. It is deal-making. Critics can rage about the politics. Oil companies price risk every day. They have done it in worse places than this. The size of Venezuela’s reserves - including fields the administration has pursued that hold an estimated 90 billion barrels - is the kind of prize that concentrates the mind. Production today sits well below what the geology can support. Getting it from roughly 1.25 million barrels per day toward 3 million is a multi-year industrial project, not a talking point. That project requires drilling, equipment, reservoir work, and capital. Chevron, Halliburton, SLB, BP, Shell, and Repsol are showing up for it. The absurdity is watching people who could not name a single Venezuelan field lecture the industry that built the modern energy system. The companies are voting with their balance sheets. That is all.