🇩🇿🇳🇪 Algeria is the first country to condemn the coup d'etat attempt against the military junta of Abdourahamane Tiani.

@CIG_telegram

🇳🇪 It is past 3:30 p.m. in Niamey, and the situation remains uncertain.

According to my sources, the airport is still under the control of the mutineers.

I understand that MISIN (the Italian troops deployed at Base 101) is safe and sound, although no official statement has been made regarding them.

Russian mercenaries are reportedly being held in custody (or simply locked up—it’s unclear) by the mutineers who still control Base 101 (next to the Diori-Hamane Airport)

Negotiations between the Russians and the mutineers are reportedly underway regarding their situation, but also to keep them out of the intra-military tensions and prevent them from interfering in the coup.

There is talk of about ten prisoners; the Russian presence in Niger numbers a few hundred people.

The units currently deployed are still heading toward Niamey; the situation should become clearer in the coming hours.

🔗 Casus Belli

🛢 🇺🇸 🇻🇪 The numbers behind the US-Venezuela oil deal:

Venezuela has now confirmed that the agreement covers 65 billion barrels of oil across 17 fields, with the US receiving "majority control."

At current WTI crude oil prices of ~$83/barrel, those reserves have a gross market value of ~$5.4 trillion.

Reports indicate the deal includes 100-year rights to develop the fields, while the US will receive 55% effective output, along with an ownership stake and rights to purchase oil at cost.

At 55%, that would correspond to ~35.8 billion barrels of effective output.

At today’s oil prices, that amount of crude alone has a gross market value of ~$3 trillion.

That said, Venezuela primarily produces heavy, sour crude, which typically trades at a meaningful discount to benchmark oil prices and requires more expensive production, blending, and refining.

Even assuming an illustrative $25-$35 of net economic value per barrel after discounts and development/operating costs, ~35.8 billion barrels could represent up to ~$1.25 trillion of cumulative economic value over the life of the fields.

This includes a $100 billion investment to develop these fields, while Venezuela estimates the projects will generate $209 billion in tax revenue for the country.

This is one of the biggest energy deals in history.

📎 KobeissiLetter

🛢 🇺🇸 🇻🇪 The oil deal with Venezuela does not take US proved reserves from 46 billion barrels to 111 billion.

Majority control of 17 fields does not give America 7.1% of the world's oil, does not put it level with the UAE, does not add supply in 2026, and does not replace a barrel lost at Hormuz.

EIA proved reserves are volumes recoverable with reasonable certainty from known reservoirs inside the United States. At year-end 2024 that was about 46 billion barrels of crude oil and lease condensate.

A lease, a 55% offtake right, or "majority control" of Venezuelan acreage does not move oil across a border on the ledger. Venezuela books it, and already does. Those barrels sit inside its 303 billion.

Which makes the 7.1% figure double counting. Venezuela's reserves are already inside the 1.57 trillion world total. Putting 65 billion in the US column counts the same oil twice.

Caracas also did not say proved reserves. It said 17 fields with a "proven potential" of 65 billion barrels, which is not a classification that exists under SEC or SPE-PRMS rules. The number has moved accordingly: Axios put a similar field list at over 90 billion, a US official said 63. There is no published agreement, no named operator and no audited reserve report behind any of them.

The 17 fields have not been named either. Reuters, which reviewed the list under negotiation, described a mix of undeveloped Orinoco acreage and mature Lake Maracaibo blocks. Orinoco crude is 8–10° API, high sulfur, high metals. It needs diluent, steam and upgraders, plus pipelines and terminals that need billions in repairs first. Venezuela produces roughly 1.1–1.2 million b/d today.

The 100-year term does not exist in Venezuelan law. The reformed hydrocarbons law caps mixed companies at 25 years plus a single 15-year extension.

These are not the barrels Hormuz carries. The strait moves Murban, Arab Light, Basrah and Kuwait Export, light to medium grades that refineries across Asia and Europe are built to run. Extra-heavy Venezuelan sour is coking feedstock. It competes with Maya and Canadian heavy on the US Gulf Coast. It does not replace a lost Gulf barrel in Ningbo or Rotterdam.

Access to future barrels, if the contract holds and the fields get built, is a long-cycle supply story. It is a contract, not a reserve. Only one of those appears on the EIA ledger.

📎 KobeissiLetter

🇮🇱🇮🇷⚡️ — Israel’s Shin Bet has confirmed that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s son, Yair Netanyahu, was urgently brought back to Israel after authorities identified a significant threat to his life, Channel 12 reports.

Yair was reportedly a target of an alleged Iranian assassination plot while living in Florida in December 2025.

The Shin Bet temporarily reassigned agents protecting President Isaac Herzog, who was in New York at the time, and sent them to Miami to assist in bringing Yair Netanyahu back to Israel.

🚀 🇺🇸 🧑‍🎓 President Trump signed an executive order Friday to begin a process of creating a U.S. Space Academy for the use of the U.S. Space Force, NASA and the civilian space flight industry, saying the academy will "attract, train and graduate the very best of our nation." He announced the new academy at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston during an event awarding the Congressional Space Medal of Honor to the crew of Artemis II.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/08/establishing-the-united-states-space-academy/

📎 CBS