US energy strategy shifts as Gulf disruptions and Venezuelan deals reshape global markets

Two announcements within days of each other have exposed how sharply the energy map has tilted in America’s favour. On 28 August, Italy’s Edison said QatarEnergy had cancelled five more LNG cargoes, extending force majeure into early November. Five days later, on 2 September, the White House unveiled what President Donald Trump called “the biggest oil deal in world history”, saying Washington had secured majority control over more than 65 billion barrels of proven Vene...

zuelan reserves through a century-long arrangement. Taken together, the two moves point to a US that is no longer merely underwriting Gulf energy flows, but increasingly making money when those flows falter. (edison.it)

The disruption in Qatar is not a marginal one. Edison said 29 cargoes have now been affected since the beginning of April, equal to about 3.8 billion cubic metres of gas, under a contract that has supplied 6.4 billion cubic metres a year to Italy since 2009. The National, citing Edison and market data, reported that the latest cancellations cover cargoes due between late September and early November, and traced the wider shutdown back to Iranian strikes on QatarEnergy’s Ras Laffan complex in March. Shell, which holds a stake in one of the expansion trains there, said in July that full repairs may not be completed until the first quarter of 2027. Kpler data cited by The National showed just nine LNG voyages through Hormuz in August, against 40 in June and 17 in July, with the last vessel crossing on 20 August. (edison.it)

Washington’s account of the Venezuela deal is expansive even by White House standards. In a release published on 2 September, it said the agreement was signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, gives the US government “powerful governance rights, economic ownership, and guaranteed low-cost off-take” from a new private Venezuelan operator, and will channel millions of barrels of new output through US refineries using American rigs and infrastructure. The administration also said the arrangement would cost taxpayers nothing and described it as part of a three-stage plan of stabilisation, reconstruction and democratic transition. (whitehouse.gov)

On the ground in Venezuela, however, the picture is far less triumphant. Associated Press reported that a February legal overhaul opened the way for private investment, but that the country’s oil infrastructure is so run down that meaningful production gains are likely to take years. In Cabimas, architect Castro told AP that “Everything that happened on Jan. 3 was simply a strategy to get where we are today”, accusing Washington of seeking to “fully immerse themselves in the country’s energy affairs” for its own benefit. Former oil worker Romel Abreu struck a more resigned note, saying: “Something is better than nothing.” AP has also reported a widening gap between the White House’s language and its later explanations. Speaking in Caracas on Wednesday, Energy Secretary Chris Wright insisted the US was “not taking any oil here” and described Washington as “a passive partner”, while Ian Vásquez of the Cato Institute argued that the 100-year concession would require National Assembly approval under Venezuela’s constitution, which has not happened. (apnews.com)

What makes this strategic realignment commercially attractive is not simply access to future reserves, but the price range created by prolonged instability. The Dallas Federal Reserve’s March energy survey, based on responses from 135 firms, found that producers needed an average WTI price of about $43 a barrel to cover operating costs on existing wells and $66 to make a new well worthwhile. Large exploration and production firms put that drilling threshold at $59; small firms put it at $68. Half of respondents said they had not changed their 2026 drilling plans, but 47 per cent either slightly or significantly increased them. The same survey found that 55 per cent of executives expected slightly more Venezuelan oil production over the next 24 months than they had three months earlier. (dallasfed.org)

Israel’s gas sector adds another US-linked strand. Calcalist Tech reported in July that Israel Natural Gas Lines had completed a 45-kilometre subsea link between Ashdod and Ashkelon, clearing the way for the Leviathan partners – Chevron, NewMed Energy and Ratio – to raise exports to Egypt’s Blue Ocean Energy under a deal valued at about $35 billion over roughly a decade. The new line is expected to lift transmission capacity to Egypt from around 6.5 billion cubic metres a year to 8.5 billion, while export capacity from Leviathan to Egypt rises from about 4.7 billion to 6.7 billion. About six weeks earlier, production capacity at Leviathan had already been expanded to 15.8 billion cubic metres a year. NewMed chief executive Yossi Abu said the completed link allows “the largest export agreement in Israel’s history” to move forward while cutting transport costs. (calcalistech.com)

None of this proves a single co-ordinated plan linking Washington, US producers and Israel’s energy ambitions. But the overlap in incentives is difficult to miss. Qatar, which accounted for about 20 per cent of global LNG supply before the war, remains hobbled by damage at Ras Laffan and by restricted traffic through Hormuz. At the same time, Washington is advertising preferential access to Venezuelan crude, US shale producers are signalling they can live with current price levels, and a Chevron-linked export corridor in the eastern Mediterranean is being enlarged. The result is a market in which insecurity in one producing region is opening space for American or American-backed supply elsewhere. (thenationalnews.com)

The longer that pattern persists, the bigger the risk for the Gulf monarchies is not geological but commercial. Edison says it has already replaced 21 of the lost Qatari cargoes, equal to about 2 billion cubic metres, and can continue meeting all of its commitments. Once utilities, traders and industrial buyers learn how to cope without regular Gulf deliveries, some of those substitute relationships may stick. That is the deeper shift these past few weeks have revealed: the old bargain in which the US policed the routes and Gulf exporters supplied the world is giving way to one in which disruption itself can strengthen America’s hand. (edison.it)

Source: Noah Wire Services