Oil prices rise after U.S. captures Venezuela’s Maduro

Oil prices rose on Sunday, as investors and traders weighed the market forces that could be unleashed by President Donald Trump’s attack on Venezuela and his comments about what could be next for the country and its massive oil reserves.

U.S. crude oil, known by traders as West Texas Intermediate or WTI, fell initially before rising about around 30 cents per barrel, or 0.6%. The international benchmark, known as Brent crude oil, rose around 40 cents, or 0.7%.

“We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure and start making money for the country,” Trump said on Saturday, shortly after U.S. forces captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.

The first of the two forces that traders appeared to be balancing is that the overall global instability created by the Trump administration’s intervention, and the twin prospects of military conflict and a power vacuum in Latin America, could potentially drive up the price per barrel.

The other possibility is that Venezuela will produce and sell more of its vast oil reserves in the future. This would likely raise the overall global supply and push down prices.

Restoring Venezuela’s energy industry would likely take years and billions of dollars of investments, however. As of Sunday evening, it was unclear where that money would come from, or who would assume the massive risks involved and, consequently, reap the profits.

Futures markets, which indicate where the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 indexes will likely open on Monday morning, were both only fractionally higher when they opened at 6:00 p.m. ET.

Overall, the mood among traders and investors appeared to be a cautious one, with few big bets or risky moves.

This low appetite for risk was also visible in another asset, whose values jumped on Sunday. Precious metals, the perennial safe havens for investors in times of global turmoil.

As the first trading session since the U.S. attack got underway, gold rose more than $70 or over 1.6%, Meanwhile, silver rose nearly 5%.

Separately on Saturday, OPEC, of which Venezuela is a founding member, decided to hold its collective oil output steady. The group did not comment on the developments in Venezuela.