In short: The second named services beneficiary, on identical logic: existing operations in Venezuela plus U.S. nationality as a licensing advantage on "U.S.-controlled land." The gating condition is the same one that gates the whole article — the "tens of billions of dollars worth of private investment" needed to lift production, whose payer "it's not yet clear who is willing to foot the bill."
Same trade as SLB, in a more concentrated form. Halliburton is the other big American oilfield-services firm with an existing Venezuelan footprint, and it is more weighted toward the drilling-and-completion work that a field-rehabilitation programme actually consists of — which means more upside per dollar of Venezuelan capex, and less to cushion it if the programme never starts.
Hold the whole chain in view before sizing it: money must be committed, contracts must be shown to be legally enforceable, and the term has to be long enough (25 years or 100 — nobody has settled it) to justify a rig programme. Services revenue is the last link in that chain to be paid, and the first to be cancelled. This is a call option on a decision no named party has yet made.
In short: The featured name — added to the Buy List as a STRONG BUY, dated 08/31/2026 at $36.79 (the title's "One 'HAL' of an Opportunity"). Chosen as the cheap, lagging half of the oil-service pair: "we'll look at HAL first since it has been a recent highlight and it's also been stuck in the drilling mud." The chart problem is stated plainly — the share price "has struggled to achieve a new multi-year high. It has repeatedly topped out around $43. We opined back in May that this time might be different" — and the failure owned: "but, alas, a sharp slide in oil prices, and a guarded outlook in conjunction with its second quarter earnings release, knocked it back into the low-30s in late July. Since then, it has been working its way higher, including in a soft tape today." Valuation is the case, with the cross-check disclosed rather than hidden: "HAL has rarely traded as inexpensively as it is now on a P/E basis. Admittedly, using the Price/Sales ratio, it looks cheap, but not as decidedly." That gap is then turned into the argument — "it is certainly fair to say that oil service industry conditions remain far from boom times. Therefore, neither revenues nor profits are maxed out; in fact, we'd argue they are far from peak levels" — a low multiple on trough earnings rather than a value trap on peak ones. The demand thesis is a rebuild, not a headline. The Venezuela deal is only the trigger — "a big winner from this deal, if it actually happens in some form, might be U.S. oil service companies" — while the near-term work is elsewhere: "besides the need for vast sums to be invested in resuscitating Venezuela's oil industry, regardless of who eventually finances that effort, there is the more pressing issue of repairing the Middle East's war-ravaged production facilities." And the house supply view supplies the multi-year runway: oil supplies "have, indeed, been enormously depleted" after the attacks plus "the loss of around half of the normal shipments through the Strait of Hormuz" — "this has been the greatest oil-supply shock in history. Consequently, those companies, like HAL, that have the unique set of capabilities to rebuild global oil stocks should have a number of robust operating years ahead of them." Preferred over SLB for the near term — SLB's trim proceeds are pointed here ("an obvious redeployment candidate is HAL… we suspect there's more near-term upside with HAL") — and both are "poised to experience that happy combination of rising earnings and expanding P/E ratios."
Halliburton does not own oil. It is one of the handful of firms the world hires to get oil out of the ground — drilling wells, fracturing rock to make it flow, cementing and completing the holes, and keeping the equipment running afterwards. That distinction matters more than it sounds. An oil producer's profits swing with the price of the barrel; a service company's profits swing with how much work the industry is doing. The two usually move together, but they are not the same bet, and this week Haymaker is making the second one.
The trigger was a headline he does not believe. Trump announced what he called "THE BIGGEST OIL DEAL IN HISTORY" — an arrangement over Venezuela, the country holding the world's largest oil reserves — claiming it "MORE THAN DOUBLES American Oil Reserves" and will lower petrol prices "long into the future." Haymaker takes it apart on three specifics rather than dismissing it in general. First, time: even if it happens, "it will take a decade or so before they are ready for harvest." Second, law: selling those reserves to a foreign entity "violates its constitution" — though, fairly noted, joint ventures and production-sharing deals are not banned. Third, memory: foreign oil companies spent decades having assets in Venezuela seized, and even when Exxon won in international courts, the country was too broke to pay, so "they may not hurry back, despite the mammoth upside." He also names the likely motive plainly — a way to talk oil prices down before the mid-term elections, of a piece with the steady stream of official posts declaring the Strait of Hormuz open.
So the headline changes no barrels this year. But notice what it does not touch: whoever eventually rebuilds Venezuela's wrecked oil infrastructure will have to hire somebody to do the physical work — and the same is true, far sooner and on a far larger scale, of "the Middle East's war-ravaged production facilities." That is the actual thesis. Haymaker's standing view is that world oil supply has been genuinely depleted by the attacks on those facilities plus the loss of roughly half the normal shipments through the Strait of Hormuz — "the greatest oil-supply shock in history." Rebuilding that lost supply is years of work, and the firms with "the unique set of capabilities to rebuild global oil stocks should have a number of robust operating years ahead of them."
The reason to buy Halliburton specifically is that it has been left behind. The shares keep running into a ceiling around $43 and failing; a May call that "this time might be different" was wrong, and after a drop in oil prices and a cautious outlook alongside second-quarter results the stock fell back into the low $30s in late July. It has been grinding higher since. On earnings-based valuation it "has rarely traded as inexpensively as it is now."
The most useful part of the write-up is the honesty about that cheapness. Haymaker checks it against a second measure — price compared to sales rather than to profits — and admits the stock "looks cheap, but not as decidedly" on that one. The gap between the two is the whole argument. Price-to-earnings can look artificially low when profits are at a peak and about to fall; that is the classic trap in a cyclical business. Here it is the opposite: industry conditions "remain far from boom times," so "neither revenues nor profits are maxed out; in fact, we'd argue they are far from peak levels." A low multiple on depressed earnings is the good version. If the rebuild work arrives, profits rise and investors are usually willing to pay a higher multiple for them at the same time — what he calls "that happy combination of rising earnings and expanding P/E ratios," two effects that multiply.
Practically: Halliburton is added to Haymaker's Buy List as a Strong Buy at $36.79, and it is where he suggests putting money taken off the table in Schlumberger, on the view that "there's more near-term upside with HAL."
In short: Named with Schlumberger as the oilfield-service majors already moving rigs back into Venezuela ahead of the announced deal — the on-the-ground tell behind the headline. No stance on the equity.
54:32I mean, Schlumberger and Halliburton and these guys are already moving back in there. They're bringing rigs back in. This is going to happen. People can, I've already commented, well, the terms aren't fair. They're being ripped, Venezuelans are being ripped off. It's still going to happen. Okay. And so, is there a way to play it? I think I found a way.
In short: "I own RIG just like I own Halliburton and Schlumberger because I think that the industry has deferred a tremendous amount of sustaining capital investment and new project investment and they're going to have to play catch-up in that investment for the next five or six years."
Halliburton sells the services and equipment oil companies buy when they drill and complete wells — so its revenue rises when the industry finally spends the maintenance capital it has been deferring.
Rick holds it as one of three best-of-breed service names (with Schlumberger and Transocean) on exactly that thesis: a five- to six-year catch-up in sustaining capital "really all across the industry." He isn't picking a technology winner; he's buying the toll collectors on a spending wave he thinks is unavoidable.
32:59I don't have much faith in them. I own RIG just like I own Halliburton and Schlumberger because I think that the industry has deferred a tremendous amount of sustaining capital investment and new project investment and they're going to have to play catch-up in that investment for the next five or six years. And there's going to be catch-up really all across the industry.
In short: The second of "the big three oil service companies" — same global deferred-capex catch-up thesis; might not be the best stock performer but best risk/reward.
Halliburton is the second of Rick's "big three" oil-services names — same idea as Schlumberger. As the world is forced to resume both new-project investment and the deferred maintenance spending, the largest services companies are the shovels-and-picks way to profit.
49:19But there are a few groups, one of them US connected, actually with good connections to the Trump family, that are on the smaller side that are going into Venezuela. A different way to play Venezuela would be simply to buy Schlumbumber, Hallebertton, and RIG. — The big three oil service companies. And this isn't just a Venezuela play, — right? — The whole world is going to have to resume new project investing and deferred sustaining capital investing.
In short: Named with SLB as an oil-service name that "look[s] to be particularly underpriced." Reiterates the June-22 add of Halliburton as an oil-service proxy on the cheap-energy thesis; the multi-year Middle-East energy-infrastructure rebuild is the added tailwind.
Halliburton is the other giant oil-services name, alongside SLB — the same idea: it makes money when producers spend money finding and pumping oil, so its shares track (and often amplify) the oil-and-gas cycle. Hay first added HAL to the buy-list in June on its cheap, "extremely undemanding" valuation; here he groups it with SLB as "particularly underpriced" now that oil has broken higher. The same multi-year Middle-East rebuild tailwind applies. Because services stocks are more volatile than producers, this is a higher-beta way to bet on the cheap-energy re-rating rather than a defensive holding.
In short: New name — an oil-service company that closely tracks oil & gas producers; likes the chart and valuation. Not yet broken out, but he expects it will "before long"; multiples "extremely undemanding."
Halliburton is an oil-services company — it sells the drilling and fracking services that oil producers buy, so its stock tends to move with the producers. It's a brand-new pick for Haymaker, added because the chart and valuation look attractive (very cheap multiples). Like Diamondback, it hasn't broken out yet, but he expects it will. It's a way to play an oil recovery one step removed from the drillers themselves.
In short: His own oilfield-service exposure is "concentrated in the best of the best of the service companies — the Halliburton… the Schlumberger." He concedes he doesn't understand process/technology well enough to pick the smaller, more nimble names, so he owns the majors; service companies should benefit as deferred drilling has to be made up.
Halliburton is an oilfield-services company — it doesn't own the oil, it sells the drilling, fracking and well-completion work that producers pay for. Rule's logic is second-order: the oil industry has skimped for years on the routine spending needed just to keep existing fields producing, so a wave of catch-up drilling is coming, and the companies that do that drilling get paid either way. He admits he's not good at picking the small, technically clever service names, so he sticks with the biggest, best-run majors. Halliburton is one of the two he names as his own holding.
17:50But our capital reinvestment pre war was not sufficient. We'll see what happens over the next year. — Yeah, definitely. Great point. And so I imagine you think that the service companies as well providing drilling facilities for them could also benefit from this. — I wish I understood the service business better because what you say is true.
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