NEW YORK, Sept. 11, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Oil Market Daily News Commentary - The intuitive response to crude above $100 is to drill. That is not what the largest oil companies in the world did over the past three weeks. With Brent closing at $101.21 on September 9, its highest since May 22, and West Texas Intermediate settling at $96.05, the supermajors spent the run-up trading assets rather than adding rigs: handing off operatorship of a multibillion-dollar liquefied natural gas project, swapping acreage, and, in three separate cases, buying deeper into a country most of them spent the last decade writing down. Companies mentioned in today’s commentary include: Chevron Corporation (NYSE: CVX), TotalEnergies SE (NYSE: TTE), Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE: XOM), Eni S.p.A. (NYSE: E), and BP p.l.c. (NYSE: BP).

Key Takeaways

• The price move is geopolitical, not geological. Brent gained 3.4% on September 9 to $101.21 and WTI 3.3% to $96.05 as fighting between the United States and Iran escalated in the Persian Gulf. Roughly a fifth of the world’s crude normally transits the Strait of Hormuz.
  
• Consumers are already paying for it. U.S. gasoline hit a Labor Day record of $4.15 a gallon, and GasBuddy’s head of petroleum analysis said diesel was expected to reach $6 a gallon for the first time on record within days.
  
• The banks moved their numbers, but not as far as the tape. Goldman Sachs raised its Brent and WTI forecasts by $5 to $85 and $80 for December 2026, and warned Brent could exceed $120 in 2027 if Gulf output stays four million barrels a day below prewar levels, a scenario it does not treat as its base case.
  
• Venezuela is the common thread. Three of the five companies below announced Venezuelan expansions inside two weeks, following the U.S. Treasury’s issuance of Venezuela General License 50C on August 27.
  
• Portfolio surgery beat capital expenditure. The single largest project decision of the period was an operatorship transfer rather than a new build, moving a long-delayed LNG development closer to a final investment decision without either party committing new drilling capital.
  
  

Why the Majors Are Not Drilling Their Way Out of This
A supply shock caused by a shipping chokepoint cannot be solved by a drill bit, at least not on any timeline that matters to the current price. The barrels at risk are already in production; what is at risk is their ability to reach a buyer. Adding rigs in West Texas does nothing about a tanker that cannot leave the Gulf, and the lag between a spud and first oil is measured in months against a conflict that has repriced the curve in days.

That leaves the majors with a different question. If the risk premium is durable, where should the portfolio be sitting when it unwinds, and where should it be sitting if it does not? The U.S. Energy Information Administration does not expect Middle East production to return to near pre-conflict levels until early 2027, and has Brent averaging $87 across 2026. A forecast of that shape rewards barrels outside the Gulf, long-dated gas, and any resource that can be acquired rather than found.

Venezuela fits all three descriptions, which is why the last fortnight looked the way it did.

Five Companies, Three Weeks
The companies below are referenced solely as market and sector context and as examples of disclosed corporate activity during the period. None is presented as a recommendation, and none is a comparable of any other.

Chevron Corporation (NYSE: CVX)
Chevron announced agreements with Venezuela establishing updated terms for its joint ventures, including enhanced fiscal, commercial and legal provisions and additional acreage in the Orinoco Belt. The Petroindependencia joint venture, in which a Chevron subsidiary holds a 49% interest, was assigned rights to develop the adjacent Carabobo 1 and Carabobo-2-South-A areas. The joint ventures plan to invest more than $7 billion over five years and to more than double production to approximately 600,000 barrels a day compared with 2026, at total costs the company puts below $20 a barrel.

Chairman and Chief Executive Mike Wirth framed it as a century-long position rather than an opportunistic one, saying the expanded footprint reflects confidence in the country’s resource potential and its ability to compete for investment within the portfolio for decades. The company’s three Venezuelan joint ventures have grown production 15% year to date. It follows an April agreement that raised Chevron’s working interest in Petroindependencia to 49% and assigned the Ayacucho 8 area.

TotalEnergies SE (NYSE: TTE)
TotalEnergies transferred operatorship of the Papua LNG project to Exxon Mobil and agreed to sell a 9.1% interest to its project partners, moving a development that has slipped repeatedly a step closer to a final investment decision expected later this year. The company also cut the project’s estimated cost to $14 billion. Handing the operating role to a partner on a project of that size is an unusual move for a company of TotalEnergies’ standing, and it is the clearest single illustration of the theme running through this period: capital discipline expressed through who carries the project rather than through whether it proceeds.

Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE: XOM)
Exxon Mobil is the counterparty on the other side of that transfer, taking operatorship of Papua LNG and with it responsibility for delivering a project into a gas market that has spent the year being reshaped by the same Gulf disruption affecting crude. For Exxon the appeal is straightforward. Operatorship of a large, late-stage LNG development is among the harder positions to acquire in the industry, and acquiring one at the point where a final investment decision is in sight rather than years away removes a considerable amount of the schedule risk that usually attaches to these assets.

Eni S.p.A. (NYSE: E)
Eni became operator of a Venezuelan oil field described in industry reporting as holding some 35 billion barrels in place, extending a pattern that has defined the Italian major for several years: taking operating positions in resource-rich jurisdictions that larger peers have historically found politically difficult. The scale of a resource of that size is not the same thing as recoverable reserves, and heavy oil of that type carries development costs, upgrading requirements and offtake constraints that a barrel count does not convey. What the move does establish is that the reopening of Venezuelan acreage is not a single-company phenomenon.

BP p.l.c. (NYSE: BP)
BP secured a Venezuelan offshore gas license in partnership with XRG, the international investment arm backed by Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, adding a third major to the list of Western companies taking new Venezuelan positions in the same window. The gas focus distinguishes it. Venezuela’s offshore gas has been discussed as an export opportunity for the better part of two decades without a great deal to show for it, and a partner with Gulf state backing changes the financing arithmetic on a project of that kind more than it changes the geology.

What to Watch
Three things. Whether the Hormuz disruption proves to be a quarter-long event or the multi-year one Goldman is willing to sketch as a risk case, because the difference decides whether these Venezuelan commitments were early or expensive. Whether any of the announced Venezuelan agreements survive the political cycle in both capitals, given that President Trump has publicly suggested the conflict will not resolve before the November midterms. And whether the current sanctions posture holds, since General License 50C is an authorization rather than a settlement.

The wider point is worth holding onto. Triple-digit crude used to be a signal to spend on exploration. This cycle, the largest companies in the business responded by buying developed resource in a jurisdiction they can enter through negotiation rather than discovery, and by trading operatorship of a project nobody wanted to fund alone. Whether that reflects discipline or a lack of conviction in the price is the question the next two quarters will answer.

CONTINUED... Read daily coverage of crude prices, OPEC policy, natural gas, refining margins and the politics that move the barrel at: https://oilmarketdaily.com/

Article Sources:
[1] CNBC, oil market reports, September 8 and 9, 2026 (Brent and WTI settlement prices, U.S.-Iran escalation, gasoline and diesel price commentary, Goldman Sachs forecast revisions).
[2] Chevron Corporation, "Chevron Expands Position in Venezuela," September 2026 (joint venture terms, Orinoco Belt acreage, investment and production plans, Mike Wirth commentary).
[3] Energy Intelligence reporting on the transfer of Papua LNG operatorship from TotalEnergies to Exxon Mobil and the associated 9.1% interest sale.
[4] Al Jazeera and U.S. Energy Information Administration market outlook reporting on Strait of Hormuz disruption, Middle East production recovery timing and 2026 Brent averages.
[5] Public disclosures of the referenced companies.

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