Venezuela oil reset: what it means for gold, silver and energy

0:04300 billion barrels. That's more than Saudi Arabia, more than Russia, more than anyone. And if you think this is just about drugs or geopolitics, you're missing the biggest investment opportunity of the next 20 years. Because what's happening right now in Venezuela isn't just changing the oil markets. It's reshaping gold, it's reshaping silver, the petrodollar system, and it's creating a massive deflation play that could define your investment returns for the rest of your life, even if you're just 100% in stocks or anything else.

0:37So in the next 25 minutes, I'm going to show you exactly which sectors are about to boom, which are the ones at risk, and how to position yourself to profit from this seismic shift in commodities, which have knock effects to everything else. By the way, my name is Felix Prehn. I'm an ex-investment banker. It's Winston back there who does all the hard research around here, which is why he looks so tired. And we've seen how Wall Street really works.

1:04I'm also the founder of the Goat Academy with over 20,000 students and the co-founder of tradevision.io where we give you access to insane level of data. I'll show you a hint of that today. And my mission here is very simple, teach regular investors, which is what I used to be, how to spot the opportunities that Wall Street sees first before the mainstream catches on. And right now, Wall Street is quietly positioning for what I call the Venezuela reset. So by the end of this video, you'll understand exactly what that means and how to profit from it.

1:35So let's dive into it. Now, what actually happened? If you've been living under the rock, last Friday night the United States launched a military strike against Venezuela. They captured Nicolás Maduro who now faces narco terrorism charges in New York. Now why does that matter? Well, the oil infrastructure was left untouched. Not in the greatest shape, but they didn't damage it with the bombings.

2:00Zero damage to production facilities, refineries or export ports, apart from the Maduro years of cronyism and all of that, maintenance being not done properly. But it was a surgical precision strike. The US wants that infrastructure operational because they want the oil flowing. Venezuela has 303 billion barrels of proven oil reserves. That's 17% of all the oil on the planet. The Saudis are like, "What about us?" Canada doesn't have that much. Iran, Iraq, Russia, anyone. No one's got as much oil as these guys.

2:35And I've seen people on X saying, "Look, great. We'll just extract all this oil, will sell it and we pay off our $38 trillion national debt and get rid of income taxes." But what most of you don't understand about Venezuelan oil, it's heavy crude oil, tar sands. This is the most expensive, most difficult oil to extract on the planet. Think of it like this. Middle Eastern oil is like sticking a straw in the ground and it just comes squirting out and it does a belly dance. Venezuelan oil is like trying to suck peanut butter through that same straw without the belly dance. It's thick, it's gooey, it requires massive infrastructure to extract and refine.

3:17Now at peak production, Venezuela was doing about 3.5 million barrels per day. Today, less than 1 million, which is what happens when you let a thousand generals run the country. Seriously, that's how many generals they seem to have. So the infrastructure is 25 years old. It's decaying, right? Experts estimate this is going to cost $58 billion, maybe even $100 billion to restore to previous levels.

4:01Now Trump says, "We're going to do this in 18 months." Industry experts say it's going to take years. Years. Right, here are Trump's exact words. I think we can do it in less time than that, but it'll be a lot of money. A tremendous amount of money will have to be spent and oil companies will spend it. And then they get reimbursed by us or through revenue.

4:22So the US government may actually subsidise American oil companies to rebuild Venezuela's energy industry. We're talking Exxon, Chevron, ConocoPhillips. I'll tell you which one is the one I like out of those. And Trump has just announced that Venezuela will transfer 30 to 50 million barrels of high quality oil to the United States in the medium term. My Spanish is appalling. And it's true because Chevron has already contracted 11 tankers scheduled to arrive at Venezuelan ports later this month. So they're just going to pick up some money basically and that money is going to get spent on US or Venezuelan interests. My guess would be more American interests. Maybe they're aligned.

5:09But before you now rush out and buy oil stocks or you don't understand the gold and silver level yet or how it's impacting specific sectors, here's what most people miss and this is so important the yellow glasses have to come on. So why does Venezuela actually matter for a second? In the 1970s, the US recalibrated its Gulf Coast refineries to process heavy crude because they were expecting light oil to run out. It didn't. Fracking gave the US plenty of light crude oil. But those refineries are still set up for the heavy crude and switching them back would cost hundreds of billions. No one's going to do it.

5:46So today, 70% of US oil imports are heavy crude. Comes mostly from the Canadians. 60% of US heavy crude supply comes from up north. Now Venezuelan heavy crude is a direct substitute for moose oil and the same processing, the same refineries can handle it. So if Venezuela comes back online, the US can reduce Canadian dependence and it can lower energy costs. That's actually one of the key investment opportunities here once you understand that.

6:27And maybe you're thinking, Felix, I don't really believe this. Well, let me show you this tweet from the official White House X account. "I've just been informed that Venezuela is going to be purchasing only American-made products with the money they received from our new oil deal. These purchases will include, amongst other things, American agricultural products, American-made medicines, medical devices, and equipment to improve Venezuela's electric grid and energy facilities. In other words, Venezuela is committing to doing business with the United States of America as their principal partner. A very wise choice."

7:00So this is basically a colony now, right? You get that, right? This is colonialism at its finest. Hopefully it'll be better than Maduro for the Venezuelan people, but that's basically what we were talking about here. So before we proceed, let me give you 30 seconds of why this matters. I learned how to manage my money and how to invest and therefore retire in my early 40s from my mentors. Those are guys who worked on Wall Street, market makers, guys who worked to manage big hedge funds.

7:28And what I've been doing for the last few years is giving you guys access to those very mentors. Now there's always a limit to how many students we can take because we teach one-on-one, literally one-on-one, but we've just opened up 30 spots for our Wall Street protocol, which has been closed. So if you are interested in potentially learning from people who understand this to a higher level than almost anybody in the world, book a freedom call as I call them to find out if learning from my world mentors might be right for you. There's a link down below. It is felixfriends.org/freedom and my hope is that some of you guys will find the same freedom that I found.

8:05So check that out. Put in the comments if you booked a call by the way and I can see that that is actually working here for you. Now that call, by the way, it's free, zero risk. We're going to walk you through exactly what we do, how we do it. You can ask us a million questions. See if this is a good fit for you or not.

8:24Now there's a big warning here. Back to the Venezuela story. This is a 2 year minimum investment theme. This one here, we're going to go back to gold and silver, that's a little bit quicker. But this is not a quick flip. This is not a trade you make on Monday and you sell on Friday. Why? Because it takes time to get oil production online and it takes time to dig for gold. It takes time to build infrastructure. So if you're looking for a get rich quick scheme, this isn't it. Actually this channel is never it. Unsubscribe now. Block me. Please go away.

8:51If you're looking for a multi-year investment scheme that could define the next decade, pay close attention. The obvious winners here are the US oil majors, right, that'll be involved in rebuilding the oil infrastructure. So who have we got? We've got Chevron, CVX. They are already operating in Venezuela. They're the only oil super major that maintained operations there. Everybody else left and got confiscated, basically communised or whatever you call it.

9:22They've got 11 contracted tankers arriving in January. They have existing relationships, they have existing infrastructure and they're definitely first in line because they're there. Second, so this is number uno, dos is Exxon. Massive capital, global expertise in heavy crude operations. So if the US government is subsidising this rebuild, Exxon will want a piece and I think they're going to get it.

9:51And then is COP, ConocoPhillips. This is the one I'm watching actually most closely. They have very significant experience in heavy crude and they're positioned to benefit from increased US production and also refining. Now these companies won't just benefit from Venezuela directly, they'll benefit from the entire shift in heavy crude supply chain. So here's where it gets interesting.

10:12Loser in this trade that most people aren't talking about. So let me show you the losers. Canadian oil companies have been the darling of energy investments for the past few years. The narrative has been Canadian oil is going to boom in 2026 and in 2027. Now, I'm approaching that with some scepticism since last weekend and I'll tell you why.

10:32Canadian heavy sour crude oil is basically the same thing as the Venezuelan heavy crude. It's completely substitutable. Same requirement for processing, same refinery setup, basically same end product. So Venezuelan production ramps up and we're talking here years, right? I would say 2 to 5 years is probably a more realistic outcome.

10:58Canadian oil companies are going to face some serious competition from a country that is basically US-owned and it's closer to the US Gulf where the US coastal refineries are. So it's actually cheaper to transport than to bring it in from moose country up north. So I love Canadians and you're amazing, you're wonderful people, but sometimes I have to take the piss out of somebody. There's no French people in this video, so I had to pick on you.

11:25So I'm not saying dump your Canadian energy stocks tomorrow. Some of them pay really nice dividends and that could be quite attractive as interest rates come down. But what's the path there? The stock market is forward-looking. So if you're heavily in Canadian oil producers, if you're Canadian, you understand this could hurt them quite badly.

11:45But let's talk about the stuff that really matters and what nobody really seems to be understanding or discussing. This is the deflation play. This links into the whole reset talk. This links into gold and silver. This links into the value of the US dollar. This is a decades-long deflation claim.

12:03When you increase oil supply, you lower the cost of everything else. Gasoline, heating, transportation, manufacturing, plastics, petrochemicals, and yes, everything is basically wrapped in plastic. So pretty much everything in the world gets cheaper. Plus, Venezuela is also burning enough natural gas, which is a side product, byproduct of the oil, to power the entire country. So the US is going to give them that gas capturing infrastructure, and that's going to lower energy costs even more because Venezuela isn't going to need any of their own energy. Basically it's going to be just free energy.

12:38So what is the US going to do with this? Well, the US has $38 trillion in debt. It pays a trillion annually just in interest, more than defence spending. Although Donald Trump said the defence budget next year should be $1.5 trillion. That's taking care of that problem, isn't it? So we'll work on a defence, we actually just did a defence stock research report that came out a little while back in the community. Link also down below if you want to check that out.

13:10Now what are they going to do? They're going to inflate the debt away. I keep saying this. JP Morgan confirmed in their 2026 outlook that policymakers will effectively inflate the debt away by driving inflation and lower real interest rates. This little sentence here, this comes from JP Morgan, the Lord and Saviour himself, right?

13:34But they need to control energy prices to keep inflation from getting out of control and from stop you from getting pissed off with them, right? So the consumer, particularly in the US, measures inflation mostly at the gas station. People see it. People notice it immediately. So what do you do? Well, you flood the market with Venezuelan oil. The government can keep headline inflation manageable while keeping the real inflation quiet and no one's going to really notice it.

14:03So you can print all that money like they did after COVID and the rich get incredibly richer because asset prices go through the moon. Sorry, excuse my French. But the man on the street isn't going to notice that a salary isn't going to take him very far, right, in terms of assets.

14:21So we've seen this before. After World War II, the US had 106% of GDP, the economy, in debt. By 1974, it was just 23%. How did they do that? They inflated it away. The Fed kept their bond interest rates at 2.5%. Inflation was running at 6.5%. So investors on those bonds lost 4% per year. They lost 55% over 20 years, which is pretty extraordinary. And savers lost, retirees lost. Who won? The government and asset owners. Guess the rich. They got richer and richer. And that's happening again.

14:56So how do you position yourself on the winning side this time now that you know this is happening? Well, it's a golden opportunity. Central banks have been buying over 1,000 tons annually in gold since 2022. That's double the average of the last decade. In October 2025, last data I have, they bought the most gold during a price pullback just one month after the first US strikes on Venezuelan boats.

15:22After the US froze Russian assets in 2022, coincidence there on the 2022, right, central banks around the world realised whatever they hold in the US or in US government bonds, it could be stolen instantly. And maybe you think it's right that we steal the Russians' gold or whatever. That's neither here nor there, but you must realise that every other country in the world is like, they can just do that. Have we got anything in dollars? Yeah, we've got most of our stuff in US debt and gold, but it's stored in New York. Well, let's do something about that, right?

15:58So this is triggering a massive de-dollarisation and Venezuela was part of this. They joined the BRICS. They moved away from the dollar. China became the largest oil buyer and now the US controls their oil completely. In fact, they're literally just taking it. They're just picking it up, right? So what's the message to our country? Buy more gold. Gold has overtaken the dollar as the leading reserve asset for foreign central banks and this trend accelerates. I'm not telling you, it's not financial advice. This is just my humble opinions. Obviously go away and do your own bloody research, but that's what we're talking about.

16:32Second, we have silver, extreme supply tightness. China just implemented export controls. Can't bring this stuff out anymore easily. We've got industrial demand from solar, from electronics, from AI. Plus the paper market is breaking down. COMEX, who are the monkeys who are running the paper market, they used to have 378 bits of paper for every physical ounce of gold. So when they can't deliver physical metal, the paper price becomes kind of meaningless, right? So the physical price is taking over and the physical price is higher than the paper price.

17:11So short term prices may pop again because of uncertainty. Now there is this rumour out there which is being spread by the banks that there's going to be a massive silver sell-off. Sometimes you spread a rumour, things can happen. So what actually happened there? Well, there is a Bloomberg silver index and they're going to have to sell off some silver because it's a rebalancing thing they do at the end of the year.

17:34Now everybody knows that. So everybody's expecting silver to go down. So therefore everybody has already sold silver, shorted it. And now as that index actually sells the real silver, they're going to be buying back to close their positions. So in effect, I don't think it's going to do very much unless there might be a bit of fear-driven nonsense by the headlines which COMEX might be pushing out there, right?

17:57So for me, it's always a question of silver. It's not a trading thing. Something we buy and hold and accumulate, especially on pullbacks. So I'm personally very bullish on gold and silver going into the next year or two because of the structural demand that we have for both instruments. Again, that's my opinion. You're going to come to your own, right? If you want to potentially learn from a market maker who worked the gold and silver markets, then he's one of my mentors, then you might want to book yourself that freedom call at felix.org/freedom.

18:30Now there is something even shakier in this, about as sexy as Venezuelans that are very attractive. Not that I've met one, but I'm told they are very attractive. So here's a sector that's about to get a double boost from the Venezuela situation. Mining stocks. And think about it. If gold and silver prices are going to go up because increased central bank demand, supply tightness, mining companies, all that stuff. What if oil prices are going to go down because we now have more oil? Mining companies benefit even more. Why? Because energy is one of the largest costs for mining. Think about it. You got to drill into that mountain. You're going to spend a lot of money on energy.

19:11So cheaper diesel for mining equipment, cheaper transportation cost, cheaper processing cost, higher profit margins. So it's the perfect storm for mining stocks, fundamentally strong demand for the metals and then the cost actually going down. And mining stocks are always volatile, right, so this is not for the faint of heart. But if you look at the junior gold miners here, they've had a pretty extraordinary 2025 where they start somewhere down here, they did 172%. So it's kind of hard to be wrong on most gold miners.

19:45Is it going to continue? Well, what you're actually going to do is you got to zoom out. You're going to go back to 2011 and see that these miners were at one point trading way higher than they are right now. We're talking another 46% up. So we're actually trading below 2011 valuations, which is kind of bonkers considering inflation, right?

20:08And with the Venezuela situation, it creates both higher metals prices, it lowers energy costs. I think mining stocks could be one of the best performing sectors of the next couple of years. But you need to be selective. Not all mining companies are created even equal. You want companies with proven reserves, low production costs, strong management, and a jurisdiction that is safe. So maybe not Venezuela.

20:31Where you got to do your homework. Right now, let me tie this all together and show you exactly how to think about positioning here. This is my playbook. Doesn't have to be your playbook, but it can be the basis of your research. So let's put it together.

20:45Here's how I'm thinking about the Venezuela situation from an investment point of view. Theme number 1, pretty straightforward. Companies like Chevron, Exxon, ConocoPhillips, they're going to benefit from rebuilding the oil infrastructure. They're going to get paid for that. They're going to get all the heavy crude production, which is going to fill their refineries. So these are long-term positions that could benefit from basically just Venezuela. We're thinking fat dividends if you got time to hang about.

21:12The second theme is precious metals, gold and silver as insurance against de-dollarisation. Because I can tell you Venezuela is going to speed up de-dollarisation, right? If you're any country in the world, if you are not now buying assets like gold that you can hold in your own vaults, you've lost the plot, right? So how do we do this? Just accumulate every month or on pullbacks if you want to be a bit smarter about it. To me, this is an insurance. It's a long-term insurance against geopolitical risk and everything else.

21:46And then thirdly, this is again a trading play. It's mining stocks, major miners, carefully selected junior miners that benefit from them. For my students, I also provide pre-selected lists of those. It doesn't mean you need to buy them, but just narrows down your research a little bit. And that's the leverage here. But you got to do your research and your homework otherwise you can get hit pretty hard.

22:06And then theme number 4 is avoid the oil moose because there is now competition in town and the US is obviously going to prefer buying Venezuelan oil over Canadian because they basically own Venezuela. They don't own Canada yet, says Trump. If you own those for the dividends just understand the risk you're taking.

22:29But we also have deflation beneficiaries. And this is energy costs. So manufacturing companies, transportation, logistics, chemicals, they all have lower input costs as a result of Venezuela. And if you take on top of that the likely impact that AI is going to have on manufacturing, you no longer will need to make your stuff in a low income country for the cheap labour. You can do it anywhere because robots and automation will do it.

22:58So that will actually continue the sort of globalisation outsourcing thing. Your shirts made in Bangladesh or something because it's cheap there. You can actually now do that in the US because there'll be machines that do it and they're going to reach a very similar cost. So just like we saw in the late 90s when the jeans went from $100 to like $15 or something, that's going to continue and they're going to do that to keep you and me thinking there is no inflation.

23:28But the reality is, look at the stock market. Look at gold prices. That shows you what the actual inflation is. And if the stock market goes up like 20% in a year, unless you have a lot of assets in the stock market, you are 20% poorer in comparison to those who have. Your salary is worth 20% less in terms of stocks or in terms of gold or in terms of real estate. That's the real inflation. It's going to hit people really, really hard if they don't understand what's going on here.

23:57So get your money out of cash and into assets. Stop thinking about your salary and start thinking about how you turn your salary into assets fast because cash is officially trash. The government, as confirmed by JP Morgan, the mighty, is going to inflate away the value of your dollars to reduce the debt. And I don't think that's sunk in yet. Asset owners win. Who are asset owners? The rich. Who are cash holders? People who live paycheque to paycheque. So be in stocks, be in real estate, be in commodities. The people who do that actually come out of this smiling, smelling even of roses.

24:38Now timeline, timeline's important here because people have unrealistic expectations about this. So we immediately have this 30 to 50 million barrel transfer to the US. Chevron's picking that up. That's not going to move the needle on global oil markets significantly as a one-term thing. Over the next 6 to 18 months, we're gonna have a pretty good idea of what the Venezuelan infrastructure looks like, how much US investment is required, how long that's going to take. Hopefully it'll stabilise politically, especially for the Venezuelans watching.

25:07Actually, one of my mentors, he's an amazing guy. He's a finance professor. He's written 2 books on investing and risk management, and he's part of our gang, and he lives in Venezuela. So I'm very happy and very much hopeful that life's going to get better for you guys over there. But this is the wait and see phase. Not a lot's going to happen here in that phase until we have more clarity on what the new industrial is going to look like.

25:33And then the medium term, that's the rebuilding phase, right? So production starts to ramp up. You get more oil coming out of the ground. The mining stocks benefit from the lower energy costs. And that's when things start to play out. Typically, you want to be in that a little bit earlier. And then the longer term stuff, say Venezuela goes back to pumping out 3 million barrels a day, then that's going to really put on some pressure on oil prices. Deflation is going to flow through the economy. Precious metals will continue to reflect the de-dollarisation.

26:04And then the very long term, you have this weird world where you get high inflation for the unwashed masses, you and me. Then you got this weird environment where you got high inflation for just assets. Why for assets? Because that's what the rich own. And then you have relatively low inflation, at least on paper, for your food and your oil, your gas, and your heating and that kind of thing for the unwashed masses, right?

26:34So you got to decide which side of the fence you want to be on there. Because if you live paycheque to paycheque and continue to do that, you think, "Oh, my social security will bail me out or whatever." You're going to have a pretty tough life. I'm just saying that because living standards are going to drop, but you'll be able to buy tons of cheap stuff. It's made from plastic and phones and large TVs and takeaway meals and that kind of thing because they want to keep you calm, stop you from rioting. Whereas the asset holders, they're going to be in some baths on their yachts having a good time.

27:09So if you're serious about thriving, not just surviving in this over the next years to come, find yourself a mentor. Doesn't have to be us, but I'm saying we have 30 spots available if you want to learn from my mentors. And you can do that by booking a free strategy call at freelix.org/freedom. And if you got some value out of this video, well, smash the you know what, share it with people, talk about it, spread it, all that kind of good stuff. And I hope it's been of value to you. And I hope you all have an amazing 2026.

27:41All the best. 92% of investors lose their retirement savings not during the crash, but in the months before it happens. And right now, the S&P 500 just closed out last year with a 16