Oil prices rise after U.S. captures Venezuela’s Maduro
Oil prices rose Sunday as investors and traders weighed market forces that could be unleashed by President Donald Trump’s attack on Venezuela and his comments about what could be next for the country and its massive oil reserves.
U.S. crude, known by traders as West Texas Intermediate, initially fell before rising about 30 cents a barrel, or 0.6%. The international benchmark, known as Brent crude oil, rose about 40 cents, or 0.7%.
“We’re going to ask our very large American oil companies, the largest in the world, to come in, spend billions of dollars, repair the badly damaged infrastructure and start making money for the country,” Trump said Saturday, shortly after U.S. forces captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.
The first of the two forces that traders seem to be balancing is that the overall global instability created by the intervention of the Trump administration and the twin prospects of a military conflict and a power vacuum in Latin America could push up the price of a barrel.
The other possibility is that Venezuela will produce and sell more of its vast oil reserves in the future. This would likely increase overall global supply and depress prices.
However, restoring Venezuela’s energy industry would most likely require years and billions of dollars of investment. As of Sunday evening, it was unclear where that money would come from or who would take on the enormous risks involved and, therefore, reap the benefits.
Futures markets, which indicate where the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 indexes are likely to open Monday morning, were only slightly higher when they opened at 6 p.m. ET.
Overall, the mood among traders and investors appeared to be cautious, with few big bets or risky moves.
The low appetite for risk was also visible in another asset, whose values jumped on Sunday: precious metals, eternal refuges for investors in times of global crisis.
In the first trading session since the start of the US attack, gold rose more than $70, or more than 1.6%. Meanwhile, silver rose almost 5%.
Furthermore, on Saturday, OPEC, of which Venezuela is a founding member, decided to keep its collective oil production stable. The group has not commented on developments in Venezuela.
Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world, surpassing even those of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and the United Arab Emirates. But due to a lack of investment and a poor economy, Venezuela exports very little crude oil.
Restoring Venezuela’s energy infrastructure, even to where it was in the 1990s, would require $8 billion in direct investment, state oil company PDVSA has estimated.
Obtaining the money would be made more difficult by the fact that major oil and gas companies have in recent years reduced the amount they spend on upgrading equipment such as pipelines and refineries – a way for them to respond to falling oil prices.
In 2025, U.S. crude oil and Brent crude oil prices saw their largest annual declines since 2020.
Even before the Trump administration’s intervention in Venezuela, the chief economist at commodities trading company Trafigura, Saad Rahim, predicted that the oil market would face a “glut” of supply, which would likely push oil prices even lower.
