The price of crude. It had a scent, a slick, dangerous perfume. This year, it’s been climbing like a desperate man up a wall. West Texas Intermediate, the stuff they measure things by around here, started the year around fifty-seven a barrel. Now it’s pushing ninety-five. A sixty-five percent jump. Brent, the international blend, wasn’t far behind. The numbers were… insistent.
The oil companies, naturally, were grinning. A Financial Times report suggested they could be looking at sixty billion dollars extra in revenue. Sixty billion. Enough to make a saint consider a second mortgage. They weren’t exactly complaining.
I started looking at who was poised to benefit. The usual suspects, mostly. But the details… they always tell the story.
The Situation
It wasn’t a natural surge. It was trouble in the Gulf, attacks on tankers, a tightening of the noose around the Strait of Hormuz. About twenty percent of the world’s oil squeezes through that chokepoint. Shut it down, or even constrict it, and the price… well, the price gets ideas.
The futures market was hedging its bets, expecting the disruption to be temporary. May contracts were over a hundred bucks, but the fall contracts dipped into the eighties. A temporary squeeze, they said. But I’ve seen temporary squeezes turn permanent real quick. Especially when someone’s got a grudge and a lot of oil.
Cashing In
Nobody saw this coming. The energy companies were bracing for low prices, planning conservative budgets. They figured the world was drowning in supply. They were wrong. The world was about to get a lesson in how quickly things can change.
Diamondback Energy, operating in the Permian Basin, was planning to spend between $3.6 and $3.9 billion this year. A modest sum. Enough to keep the pumps moving. They figured they’d pull in $4.3 billion in free cash flow at sixty bucks a barrel. At eighty? Over $6.7 billion. At a hundred? Let’s just say they’d be swimming in it. They were prepared to squeeze a profit from a trickle, but a flood? That was a different story.
Chevron, the big one, was expecting a decent year anyway. Cost-cutting, the Hess merger, new projects. They figured twelve and a half billion in free cash flow at seventy bucks. Every dollar the price climbed added another six hundred million to the pile. They weren’t complaining either. They had the kind of smile that comes with a full vault.
Occidental Petroleum was playing it cautious too. Cutting capital spending by half a billion. Saving on interest. Expecting over a billion in extra cash flow even if the price stayed flat. Every dollar the price climbed added another two hundred and sixty-five million. They were quietly positioning themselves for a windfall. Like a spider waiting for a fly.
An Unexpected Bonus
Going into 2026, most of these companies were banking on sixty to seventy dollar oil. Safe money. They were planning accordingly. But the market had other ideas. It had a taste for chaos. Now they’re looking at a gusher of cash. More money to return to shareholders. Dividends. Buybacks. The usual games. The difference is, this time, the stakes are higher. And the smiles… well, they’re a little wider.
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2026-03-18 18:02