What happened? US attack on Venezuela and talk of the ''rebuild'' of its oil industry is not an oil positive. The US Administration''s capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and Trump''s comments that the US intends to ''run'' Venezuela, not least via the rebuilding of its oil industry holds important implications for the global oil market. In particular, the US President''s early comment that ''we''re going to have our very large United States oil companies .... go in and spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country'' appear to focus on oil industry production rejuvenation as a critical source of support for the rehabilitation of Venezuela''s broken economy. In the near term, with quite how the US will seek to influence Venezuela yet to be determined, uncertainty around Venezuela''s 900kb/d of prior oil exports (under 1% global supply), towards half of which go to China, may lend some price support. Our sense however is that disruption to export flows is now most likely at a floor, with the risks to export volumes turning to the upside, if only because the US may be happier to take them. Equally, that in the medium to longer term the rehabilitation of Venezuela''s oil industry with its substantial reserve base opens a major potential source of new supply for oil markets, is hardly a positive for price. Talk of an American oil industry that has twice been nationalised in Venezuela in the past 50 years, going in and spending billions of USD to rehabilitate the country does, however, strikes us fanciful at best. All told, we are probably now near a supply floor but recovery back to 950kb/d and importantly moves materially higher will require political and regime clarity, as well as requiring considerable investment and time. Trump may talk of US companies returning and investing billions. Any such spend will however require strong financial underpin and very attractive...