Rick Rule: Oil Is Going Higher In Coming Years, Making Oil Stocks CHEAP Right Now

Adam Taggart | Thoughtful Money® Jul 23, 2026

Summary

Oil's 2026 surge previews a structural shortage arriving around 2029-2030, built from three decades of skipped exploration.

The war-driven shortage is artificial and temporary; only the structural one needs massive capital, and no armistice cures it.

Uranium's easy money is behind: at $85-90 a pound producers earn well, yet that price still fails to incentive new supply.

Rule frames political risk as mispriced rather than absent, and points to smaller markets like vanadium for higher-upside, higher-volatility bets.

Construction financing decides project economics: 13-15% loans for weaker miners versus 3.5% for Chinese state-bank borrowers.

Top takeaway He cites his four decades investing in these markets through good cycles and bad as the yardstick against which brokerage commentary and internet narratives look badly out of touch with how markets actually work.
He reports that Adrian Day argued forcefully at the conference that government should get friction out of the way of commerce.
He says Day is completely opposed to the state taking an equity stake in major companies, calling that the basis for socialism and eventually state control.
He notes the audience gave Day a standing ovation for that argument and that he largely agreed, while pressing him afterwards on where the line sits between a favourable loan or grant and state control.

Top takeaway He argues that unlike his predecessor, Carney understands oil and gas revenue matters to the country's spending plans, but is still opposed to hydrocarbons.
He calls the headline political risk that the person running the country does not like the industry, and says investors who think he will be brought to heel by reality will find a lot of opportunity.

Top takeaway He says he has been publicly bullish on copper and reads the strong copper presence among speakers and exhibitors at the symposium as validation of the case he has been making to his own audience.
He is enthusiastic about US critical minerals policy, pointing to the expanding list of covered elements, grants and lighter regulation, and calls much of it good and exciting for resource investors.
He argues there is a large flow of money moving out of Washington and into these industries, and tells investors to get in front of that wave of liquidity.
He raises China's use of its banks as conduits of below market capital as a precedent for what state directed financing can build in thirty years, while saying he is not in favour of it.
He says he is heartened by how quickly the administration has turned toward engineering a domestic nuclear revival, and argues a determined government can be a real enabler for industry.

Top takeaway On a 2029-2030 horizon he calls oil stocks genuinely cheap, because the shortage arriving then is structural, built on thirty years of under investment and roughly a billion dollars a year of deferred sustaining capital, rather than the temporary war driven shortage of today, which makes 2026's price rise a preview of things to come.
He says that structural gap cannot be cured by an armistice and needs large capital spending over a long period, and he doubts the imbalance can be corrected in a reasonable time frame.
He expects portfolios to be overweight the United States and Canada over the next ten years, arguing American and Canadian companies lead the world technologically and are becoming preferred partners as buyers cut reliance on Gulf supply.
His named oil picks are Exxon for most investors, Chevron for those wanting more risk and Occidental for those willing to take balance sheet risk, and he expects the US gas glut to clear in about two and a half years, pointing to Devon and Equitable for gas exposure.
On uranium he says the easy and certain money has already been made at 85 to 90 dollars a pound but that price still does not bring on enough new supply, and he argues energy security can only be provided by uranium, offering Cameco, Kazatomprom or a junior basket of NexGen, Paladin and Denison as ways to play it.

Top takeaway He credits Buffett with the courage to buy Occidental, tells viewers maybe they should too, and notes the shares were still available below his average purchase price.
He says the price Buffett paid matters less than whether the deferred sustaining capital pays off five years from now, and that Buffett's extra 7 billion dollars for gathering and transmission assets cut Occidental's financial risk while reducing some of the upside on them.