Trump’s Oil War!

1,400 barrels per day. 

In the Permian Basin, that’s about how much crude a driller can expect to see flowing out of a new well. The number varies, give or take, but the sharp decline rate seen after the first year is very real. 

But it seems that President Trump found an easier way to make almost 1,000-fold that amount — all with a snap of his fingers. 

All he needed was a little help from the Skipper. 

With a gross tonnage of just over 160,000, the Skipper is ranked as a VLCC — Very Large Crude Carrier — which measures roughly 333 meters in length and flies a Guyana flag. 

It also happened to hold about 1.8 million barrels of crude oil when the U.S. military seized it two days ago. 

Buckle up, folks, because the geopolitical volatility is starting to heat up.

On December 10, 2025, U.S. forces executed what many analysts are calling a seismic shift in energy geopolitics: the military interception and seizure of the VLCC Skipper, a sanctioned oil tanker laden with roughly 1.8 million barrels of crude off the coast of Venezuela. 

What’s interesting is that this operation marks the first time in recent history that the United States has used military power to physically seize an oil vessel under sanctions. 

Are the days of weak financial sanctions behind us? Maybe. 

The Skipper, previously sanctioned in 2022 for its role in a shadow shipping network tied to Iranian oil and illicit trade, had been entering and exiting Venezuelan ports while allegedly falsifying its flag and transmitting spoofed location data to evade detection. 

President Trump’s administration justified the bold move under a federal seizure warrant, framing it as part of an intensified campaign to clamp down on sanctioned oil flows and the illicit “shadow fleet” that has long enabled regulated producers to skirt international pressures. 

Although Maduro lambasted the move as theft and “international piracy,” condemning the U.S. for weaponizing its naval reach in what had been a largely contested economic standoff, all he can truly do is sit back and pout. 

So much for any help.

Granted, the broader signal is unmistakable…

Washington is now willing to escalate beyond sanctions and rhetoric and directly disrupt petroleum logistics — a worst-case scenario for markets that have operated under the assumption that sanctions enforcement stops short of warlike measures.

The Fragile Backbone of Global Supply

Shocked as everyone seemed to be, the seizure won’t come without global repercussions. 

You see, Venezuelan heavy crude has always been inconvenient to replace. 

We’re talking about the thick, sulfur-heavy, poor quality crude that requires specialized refinery configurations — especially in China, which has spent billions tuning its plants specifically to handle this grade. Here in the U.S., prior to cutting off our oil exports from Venezuela, that was the quality of crude craved by refiners along the Gulf of America. 

Those barrels may not make headlines like the light, sweet crude pumping out of wells in the Permian Basin, but the extra-heavy oil has quietly become an anchor for global supply. 

And yet, I wish this was the worst of the geopolitical strife this week. 

You see,  the war between Russia and Ukraine has mutated into an energy war in real time. 

For months, Ukraine has targeted Russian export infrastructure: refineries, depots, and more recently the shadow-fleet tankers that move Moscow’s sanctioned barrels to India and China. 

But this week, the pattern broke when Ukrainian drones struck their third oil tanker in a shadow fleet designed to carry Russian crude. 

Then, Ukraine crossed a line no one expected — sending drones directly into a producing Russian offshore oil platform in the Caspian Sea.

That strike is the first of its kind in this conflict, and Zelensky’s strategy to target Russian energy infrastructure has hit a new stage — going directly after Russia’s oil revenues that fuel its military budget.

Put these two fronts together — a U.S. government physically confiscating tankers in the Caribbean and a Ukrainian military targeting offshore rigs — and the global market is suddenly forced to account for risks it hasn’t priced in. 

If Venezuelan exports tighten and Russian supply becomes physically less reliable, then the market balance in 2026 starts looking a whole lot tighter. 

The New Center of Gravity for Heavy Oil Supply

However, this also leads to a single market truth: those lost Venezuelan barrels aren’t coming back anytime soon.

At least,I wouldn’t hold my breath expecting President Trump to give back that 1.1 million barrels of Venezuelan crude, or any future barrels he decides to snag. 

That means that the refiners depending on that heavy crude will have to find a more stable source, perhaps from the one region that can deliver stable, long-lived supply without geopolitical roulette — Canada.

Canadian oil producers have exactly what Venezuela’s clients want (especially China):  predictable output, decades-long reserves, and an expanding pipeline network that is slowly reorienting exports toward Asian markets. 

The completion of the Trans Mountain expansion showed us exactly how powerful that shift can be; new capacity meant new buyers, and for the first time in Canadian history, oil companies didn't have to rely on the U.S. as its only buyer. 

Just pay attention, and you’ll see it for yourself. It may start with a press release about a new pipeline expansion pushing more Canadian crude toward the British Columbia coast, or entirely new projects that come into play. 

Of course, the companies extracting and upgrading that heavy crude from the bituminous sands in northern Alberta — the ones with enough scale, upgraded facilities, low decline rates, and access to growing export lanes — stand to benefit the most.

In fact, my readers and I have been tracking a few of them right now. 

Not only are they capturing the attention of legendary investors, but it’s only a matter of time before Wall Street realizes that these oil stocks have been flying under everyone’s radar. 

And as this geopolitical realignment accelerates into 2026, those companies won’t just endure the volatility — they’ll thrive in it.

P.S. The Gold Grab Has Begun — Don't Be the last One In.

It finally happened. Central banks now own more gold than U.S. Treasuries — for the first time in over 30 years. This isn’t a hedge. It’s a jailbreak.

They’re ditching debt-backed paper and stacking real, sovereign-proof wealth. The world’s most powerful institutions are quietly rebalancing their future… with gold.

NatGold is your way in.

A blockchain-backed token secured by real, in-ground gold — fully audited, totally unmined, and lightyears ahead of Wall Street’s tokenization games.

No storage. No middlemen. No waiting for the Fed to blink. Just gold you can trust in a format built for the future.

Before the vault goes digital and the door slams shut…

Click here to claim your NatGold now.