Trump Is Making a Power Play in Latin America. China Is Already There.
January 12th, 2026
Courtesy of the New York Times, a look at how China built a dominant strategic position in the region as the leading lender and trading partner, and it is watching President Trump’s next moves closely. For China, President Trump’s power grab in Venezuela is a frontal attack on a longstanding source of oil, cultivated through […]
Read more »Exxon CEO Calls Venezuela ‘Uninvestable’ Without ‘Significant Changes’
January 10th, 2026
Courtesy of the Washington Post, a report on Venezuela and lack of oil investor interest: As President Donald Trump pushed U.S. oil companies to commit to invest $100 billion in Venezuela at a White House meeting on Friday, the CEO of ExxonMobil warned the company is far from enlisting. CEO Darren Woods said that Venezuela […]
Read more »Saudis In, UAE Out? Why Djibouti Has Become The Gulf’s Indispensable Outpost
January 8th, 2026
Via The Africa Report, commentary on how – in the high-stakes game of influence across the Red Sea – Djibouti is playing the Arabian Peninsula’s rival powers off one another to secure its own sovereignty – and its future: “Officially, Djibouti has no quarrel with the United Arab Emirates, nor with Dubai,” insists a government […]
Read more »China Focuses on Africa’s Strategic Trade Routes
January 7th, 2026
Via Reuters, a report on China’s renewed Africa focus on strategic trade routes: China’s FM to visit Ethiopia, Somalia, Tanzania and Lesotho Trip extends 36-year-old tradition of making first trip to Africa African states looking for investment over loans – analyst China’s top diplomat began his annual New Year tour of Africa on Wednesday, focusing […]
Read more »Is Venezuela a Critical Minerals Target?
January 6th, 2026
Via the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a look at Venezuela’s critical minerals inventory: On December 25, 1956, the New York Times declared, “Venezuela Finds Big Ore Deposits; Geologists Assert Reserves of Minerals May Approach Nation’s Oil in Importance.” Nearly seven decades later, that promise has largely gone unrealized. Far from emerging as a major global […]
Read more »How Chevron Aims to Tap More Oil Below Kazakhstan’s Grassy Plains
January 5th, 2026
Courtesy of The New York Times, a look at how – after spending nearly $50 billion to expand Kazakhstan’s Tengiz oil field – the American oil giant and its partners encounter more uncertainty: More than two miles below the windswept steppe of western Kazakhstan, porous rocks composed of the skeletons of coral and other ancient […]
Read more »Focusing primarily on The New Seven Sisters - the largely state owned petroleum companies from the emerging world that have become key players in the oil & gas industry as identified by Carola Hoyos, Chief Energy Correspondent for The Financial Times - but spanning other nascent opportunities around the globe that may hold potential in the years ahead, Wildcats & Black Sheep is a place for the adventurous to contemplate & evaluate the emerging markets of tomorrow.