Chevron’s CEO Just Warned of Physical Oil Shortages. This $6 Offshore Driller Is Up 171% and Still Trades Below Book Value

Chevron CEO Mike Wirth turned heads astatine the Milken Institute connected May 4, telling the country that "we volition commencement to spot carnal shortages" arsenic commercialized inventories, shadow-fleet tankers, and strategical reserves get drained astatine the aforesaid time. With much than 13 cardinal barrels regular of Middle Eastern crude output knocked offline by the Strait of Hormuz closure and Brent crude settling astatine $113.76 connected May 4, the vigor backdrop has flipped from terms daze to outright availability concerns. For retail investors scanning headlines, that tightening backdrop puts a caller spotlight connected small-priced vigor names that inactive person country to run.

With that successful mind, present is 1 offshore drilling banal trading nether $30 that is positioned to payment arsenic the satellite scrambles for each disposable barrel.

Transocean (NYSE: RIG)

Transocean (NYSE:RIG) is the world's largest pure-play offshore declaration driller, operating 27 mobile offshore drilling units, including 20 ultra-deepwater drillships and 7 harsh-environment semisubmersibles for customers similar Chevron, Shell, bp, and Petrobras.

The expert who called NVIDIA successful 2010 conscionable named his apical 10 stocks and Transocean wasn't 1 of them. Get them present FREE.

Shares person hovered astir the $6 terms constituent successful May, good wrong the sub-$30 window. The banal is up 51.33% year-to-date and 171.74% implicit the past year, yet inactive trades astatine 0.94 times publication worth and a guardant P/E of 4x. That is the benignant of valuation that gives a small-account capitalist existent optionality if dayrates support climbing.

The fundamentals enactment the thesis. In Q4 2025, Transocean posted declaration drilling gross of $1.043 billion, up 9.6% twelvemonth implicit year, with fleet utilization jumping to 85.8% from 66.8% and mean regular gross of $461,300. Full-year gross grew 13% to $3.965 billion, escaped currency travel expanded to $626 cardinal from $193 million, and absorption retired astir $1.26 cardinal successful indebtedness principal, redeeming astir $90 cardinal successful annualized interest. Backlog stands astatine astir $6.1 billion, with 10 caller fixtures since October 2025 astatine a weighted mean dayrate of $417,000 per day.