Bill Armstrong’s draft deal with Caracas comes as he rides an exploration boom driven by Donald Trump

Oil ‘wildcatter’ who cracked Alaska looks to Venezuela for repeat success
Jamie Smyth, Financial Times, July 17, 2026 (subscription required)

One of America’s most successful “wildcatters” is poised to explore for oil in Venezuela after agreeing a draft deal with the country’s authorities and buying seismic data to gain a head start on rivals.

“It has dreamland geology and a gigantic resource,” said Bill Armstrong, a Texan oilman who helped revive exploration in Alaska and is now racing to capitalise on Donald Trump’s removal in January of former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.

“There’s no way . . . I ever would have thought Venezuela would be open for business,” he said. “And then out of the blue, with that kind of raid at frickin’ midnight, they come in and they whisk Maduro away.”

Armstrong made his name on Alaska’s North Slope, the remote Arctic region where his 2013 Pikka discovery transformed perceptions of a basin many companies had written off. By the end of that decade he had sold his stake in the project for $850mn to Oil Search, a company later acquired by Australia’s Santos.

His return to frontier exploration comes amid a recovery in wildcatting — the drilling of exploratory wells in areas not known to have productive reserves. But unlike in earlier eras, the wave has been led by oil majors rather than independents like Armstrong who traditionally dominated the field.

This is not supposed to be another academic exercise in which researchers study rocks, publish papers and put the results on a museum shelf. Steve Masterman, one of the UAF faculty members who helped secure the award, correctly described it as an economic development project, and that should be exactly how it is viewed.

Editorial: Dig, baby, dig: What Alaska’s mineral wealth could become
Anchorage Daily News Editorial Board, July 18, 2026

Alaska does not suffer from a shortage of minerals. We have copper, zinc, graphite, cobalt, nickel, antimony, rare earth elements and dozens of other resources that make modern life possible. In fact, you can find 56 of the 60 minerals that the U.S. Geological Survey deems critical to national security and the economy right here at home.

What Alaska has too often lacked is the infrastructure, technology, investment and political determination needed to turn that mineral wealth into an opportunity of magnificent proportions.

A new critical minerals initiative led by the University of Alaska Fairbanks offers a chance to change that.

The National Science Foundation selected UAF’s Critical Mineral Accelerator Engine as one of 12 new regional innovation programs across the country. The Alaska effort, announced Tuesday in Fairbanks, will begin with $15 million over two years and could receive as much as $160 million over a decade if it meets performance goals and Congress continues funding the program.

That is welcome federal support, but the money itself is not the real prize. The opportunity lies in what the university, the state, Alaska Native corporations, mining companies, communities and workforce groups can build with it.

The “engine” is intended to move earthen mineral discoveries into commercial use. It brings together advanced exploration techniques and mining, processing and purification technologies. Researchers plan to use artificial intelligence to help locate rare earth deposits and improve extraction methods. Moving past the excavation sites, this initiative intends to ground expansive industrial development in biotech, power infrastructure and sophisticated manufacturing, simultaneously fostering fresh career pathways for Alaskans living in rural regions.

Pipeline Paralysis

The Legislature failed to pass the conference committee report on  HB 381, the Alaska LNG pipeline tax abatement bill, which led to many accusations about who was responsible for the bill failing.

HB 381 passed the Senate 11-8 but failed in the House on a 19-19 vote on July 16. Governor Mike Dunleavy has called a third special session beginning July 27.

The real issue was, and will continue to be the demand by some Senators to tax Hilcorp by extending the state corporate income tax to petroleum pass-through (“S”) corporations.

As described in Tim Bradner’s legislative digest:

“The add-on is basically political. Key senators have been gunning for Hilcorp for years and tacking the tax for Hilcorp onto the gas pipeline tax bill was seen as a way to do it. Unfortunately, the effort brought other entities like HEX, Armstrong and possibly others under the tax. This now seems the only issue in HB 381 that is controversial. The solution would seem to be to take out the S Corporation language out of the bill, but Senate supporters of the provision seem dug in.

Mr. Bradner also shared the following list of key items agreed to:

• The gas project would no longer be subject to the state 20-mill property tax on oil and gas facilities. A new tax based on the volume of gas moved, the “Alternative Volumetric Tax,” or AVT, would be substi tuted. This would be a substantial reduction of the tax burden for a period of time. In 10 years the AVT tax rate would be doubled. In 2060 it would be doubled again.

• The pipeline developer, Glenfarne, would make payments into a special state fund to help municipali ties along the pipeline route deal with impacts of construction.

 • A new fund paid from 20% of natural gas royalty income to the state would be created to help Alaska communities not connected with the gas pipeline deal with high fuel oil costs. This kind of fund has long been sought by rural legislators. The current Power Cost Equalization fund deals with electricity costs but not fuel oil for heating of homes.

• A Project Labor Agreement will be concluded. This will encourage maximum employment of Alaska workers.

 • Alaska LNG will sell gas to utilities during a “phase one” (pipeline only) for no more than $16 per thousand cubic feet. Gas prices in Southcentral Alaska are expected to approach this level soon due to declining Cook Inlet gas reserves.

 • Alaska LNG will facilitate construction of a “spur” pipeline to get gas to Fairbanks. The cost of the spur line will be “rolled into” the overall cost of moving gas through the pipeline, so that Interior consumers do not pay for the spur line by themselves.

The effort to spoil a good bill that was supported by 35 house members and 9 Senate members has resulted in contradictory public policy:

• The bill gives with one hand and takes with the other. It offers property tax relief while simultaneously increasing upstream income taxes.
• It raises the cost of producing gas before a single new molecule is delivered to Alaskans.

In the meantime, the two Senators leading this effort have not offered a single proposal to address the Cook Inlet gas crisis, secure affordable and reliable energy for Alaskans, or grow Alaska’s economy. Their agenda seems to begin and end with taxes. At this point, if there were an Olympic event for proposing new taxes while ignoring the actual problem, they’d be standing on the podium.