Sky Drop Capital, founded by oil services veteran Jesse Cole is a $250,000,000 infrastructure deployment fund acquiring hard assets at distressed North American prices and leasing exclusively to foreign International Oil Companies (IOC) re-entering Venezuela - the country with the world's largest proven crude oil reserves.
The investment thesis is simple. Venezuela holds the world's largest proven crude oil reserves - a resource base that decades of forced underinvestment have left dramatically under-monetized. That cycle is ending. International oil companies are actively re-entering the country. General Licenses to operate are in place.
Hydrocarbons law reforms are active and operational. The geopolitical and regulatory architecture for a major energy re-entry is substantially complete.
What does not exist – at any meaningful scale – is the infrastructure required to support that re-entry. Power generation, gas compression, well services, port logistics, cold chain capacity, technical staffing, and field fleet: the entire operational support layer for a functioning oil sector is absent in-country. The IOCs are arriving with capital and production mandates have nowhere to turn domestically. They are structurally dependent on imported infrastructure from the moment they land.
Sky Drop is taking a pick and Shovel approach, acquiring low-cost oil field assets in the US and Canada and redeploying them to Venezuela.
Sky Drop Capital intends to deploy a $250,000,000 fund to own precisely that infrastructure. Assets are sourced in North America at distressed or surplus pricing – often 30 - 50 cents on replacement cost – and deployed in Venezuela under USD-denominated lease agreements exclusively with foreign IOC operators. The Fund owns the hard assets. The IOCs pay in dollars. The structure eliminates bolivar exposure entirely while capturing the full spread between distressed acquisition cost and replacement-cost exit valuation. Sky Drop will charge a a 3.5% management fee and 20% carry fee, which will reduce over time.
$250,000,000 will be deployed across eight complementary infrastructure verticals. Each vertical is sourced independently in North American distressed or surplus markets and deployed in Venezuela under USD-denominated contracts with foreign IOC operators. The eight verticals are designed to be mutually reinforcing – power enables compression, compression enables well services, port logistics enables everything – while each operates as a standalone, independently cashflow-positive branch entity eligible for individual strategic exit.
Where Sky Drop will be allocating their capital.
Power Generation - $50M. Trailer-mounted diesel gensets 750kW - 2MW. ~50MW total installed capacity across the Orinoco Belt. Revenue modeled at $1.331.5M per module per month at full utilization. Assets paid off within 7- 9 months of deployment. Immediate cash flow from day one.
Gas Compression - $40M. Reciprocating packages 750 – 1,200 HP, sour service rated, sourced from U.S. distressed and surplus markets. New equipment carries a 3 – 5 year global manufacturing lead time. BOOT contracts, USD monthly fee recovery. Scarcity of supply is a structural moat.
Oilfield Services / Well Intervention - $75M. Workover rigs, coiled tubing, wireline trucks, snubbing units, cementing, nitrogen service. 32,000 wells ready for reactivation with no domestic supply. GL 48 explicitly authorizes E&P goods and services into Venezuela. The largest single vertical by allocation.
Port of Guanta - Forward Operating Terminal - $25M. Transform Piers 5 & 6 into a fully operational Forward Operating Terminal for Venezuela's eastern oil corridor. 12 - 15m draft, PBIP/ISPS certified, SENIAT on-site. Strategic exit to a global port operator (DP World equivalents) within 24 - 36 months of commissioning.
Cold Chain Infrastructure - $20M. Refrigerated warehousing and distribution at Guanta and across the Orinoco Belt. Cold chain capacity in eastern Venezuela is near zero relative to IOC re-entry demand. Scales directly with operator activity, making this the most demand- correlated vertical in the fund.
Specialty Staffing - $15M. Western technical specialists on 28- day rotations. $900 – $1,400/day contractor rates. Sky Drop earns 15 - 20% placement fee. Asset-light with cash flow from day one. The highest- margin, lowest- capital-intensity vertical in the portfolio.
Fleet Vehicles - $5M. 160 - 170 Ford F- 150s and Explorers (2020 - 2022). All-in landed cost at Guanta is approximately $30,000/unit. Supports field crew, site supervision, and logistics across all eight verticals. Fully integrated into operational infrastructure from day one.
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NOTE: The Electrification Project is seeking to assemble an advisory board of those interested or with expertise in gas flaring. Send a brief note to [email protected]
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Investment Summary and analysis of Sky Drop. Full investment deck.
Long Form Interview. Full text of 4026 word Interview with Jesse Cole
