Wealthy Investors Flock To Oil & Gas Assets Amid Energy Crisis

Wealth intelligence firm Altrata reported that billionaire wealth climbed 12.8% year-over-year to $15.1 trillion in 2025, and the global billionaire count reached a record 3,795 amid a tech-driven boom. While technology has been a dominant engine of recent fortune creation—tech billionaire fortunes have roughly tripled over the last decade—private capital is increasingly moving into energy amid elevated prices and stronger demand.

Family offices and other ultra-high-net-worth investors are buying into oil and gas with a longer-term perspective, targeting infrastructure such as pipelines and export facilities that they see as meeting sustained energy needs rather than short-term commodity plays. Bank of America’s Andrew Dock characterized the shift as structural rather than cyclical, according to reporting by Oilprice.com. Smaller investors are also pursuing niche acquisitions—non-operated or mid-market assets—that larger firms may overlook.

The market has become more competitive and expensive. Wood Mackenzie noted that oil and gas M&A spending hit a two-year high in the first half of 2026, with major transactions including Devon’s $25 billion merger with Coterra Energy and Shell’s roughly $16 billion purchase of ARC Resources. Lawyers and advisers say family offices can still find opportunities in asset bands that attract fewer strategic buyers, but valuations and buyer competition are rising.

Commodity trading houses and hedge funds are buying physical U.S. upstream production as well. Swiss trader Gunvor has held early-stage talks to buy Haynesville basin natural gas assets for about $1.2–$1.5 billion, and it is backing a firm to operate domestic shale holdings. Citadel expanded into upstream energy last year with its roughly $1.2 billion acquisition of Paloma Natural Gas and has continued to pursue further asset deals. Larger trading houses have similarly rotated capital into and out of U.S. upstream assets over time: Vitol, for example, announced in July the sale of its southern Delaware Basin venture VTX to Verde Operating Company for about $2.3 billion after acquiring the acreage in March 2023; the firm previously sold Vencer Energy in 2024 for about $2.1 billion after buying it in July 2020.

Money managers have also leaned into bullish oil positioning. CFTC Commitments of Traders data cited by the report show managed-money long crude positions rose by 13,660 contracts to 218,960 while short positions fell by 3,790 to 107,229, reflecting widening net-long exposure as supply risks in the Middle East intensified. Oil prices extended gains, with Brent for November trading near $105.61 per barrel and WTI for October around $101.20 per barrel; average U.S. gasoline and diesel prices cited were about $4.3163 and $6.2301 per gallon, respectively. (Reporting based on Oilprice.com by Alex Kimani.)