Gaslighting: The Theme For The Day -- January 7, 2023

Before we get started: the Venezuela story continues to boggle my mind. 

For years, CVX was given six-month extensions by the US to continue operations in Venezuela with the understanding that Venezuela would eventually be completely off-limits to US oil companies.

Now, the Biden administration has done a "180." He is now pursuing a strategy of "Keep Drilling, Venezuela."

But the bigger story here is how long oil companies are willing to work / wait to pursue a good deal. I've long forgotten but the Keystone XL was probably being discussed four decades ago, then killed two decades ago (my numbers may be way off but that's how it feels); and now finally, the Keystone XL finally looks dead: the pipeline that was stored in North Dakota for the XL has now been sold or re-purposed and is now being moved -- albeit slowly -- out of North Dakota and the US is replacing that heavy Canadian oil with heavy Venezuelan oil.

That just boggles the mind. Did anyone see this coming? And it was pretty much orchestrated by Democratic administrations. 

Now, back to the original story. Sorry for the interruption.

Without question, first place for the category "Gaslighting" goes to the Biden administration. LOL.

Re-fill the SPR? LOL.

From Bloomberg:

There were two issues here:

• Biden wanted to pay less than market value (that's not how capitalism works); and,
• Biden wanted to replenish with the "type" of oil not favored by the oil companies

From Julianne Geiger:

Rigs: Somehow, this is a non-story for me. Hey, guys, can't you see winter coming? US drillers cut most rigs since September 20, 2021. Link here. From an oil investor's point of view, this is not bad news.

The SPR release last week? 2.7 million bbls.

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