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- The most overlooked move in wealth building.
The most overlooked move in wealth building.
One asset. Multiple outcomes. The structure you choose determines everything.
Hi ,
Every great investment starts with structure.
Structure is the blueprint, deciding how and when you get paid, as well as how you’re taxed. Structure determines the speed at which you build wealth.
Enter Oil & Gas. One asset class with dramatically different plays. It’s a prime example of how structure drives dramatically different outcomes.
Fundamentals on energy are strong: oil & gas is currently cheap, production remains disciplined, and the supply shortfall on the horizon is already visible. It’s one of the few sectors where you can buy essential assets below replacement cost. This is why, after a decade away, private equity is rotating back into energy.
But the asset’s fundamentals isn’t the point: the asset doesn’t determine the outcome, the structure does. If your goal is to build your personal balance sheet with tax advantaged income and long-term appreciation, oil & gas happens to do both.
If the thesis says: demand will outstrip supply in the coming decade. Deal structure determines when and how will you get paid for it.
Different deal structures translate the same asset into completely different outcomes. Whether it’s generating income, protecting downside, shielding taxes, or long-term compounding through tax-efficient reinvestment.
Structure determines if the payoff shows up now through income and write-offs or later, through compounding appreciation and exit value.
Together, they solve the question every high-income investor faces:
How do I keep more of what I earn and make it work as hard as I do?
Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
This week’s issue is about why choosing an asset class is only the beginning—and how the right structure aligns the opportunity with your goals, not the other way around.
Inside this issue
Shift Your Stack: The O&G Opportunity in the Three Layer Energy Stack.
Case Study: How BuildEnergy I & II transform your tax bill into cash-flowing ownership
Playbook: Your goals determine your structure.
Let’s dive in,
— Walker Deibel
WSJ & USA Today Bestselling Author of Buy Then Build
Founder, Build Wealth
P.S. In this issue we use our two open Oil and Gas investment funds as examples. To explore either fund jump into our investor portal. Create an account to get details like:
BuildEnergy I: 35% projected IRR with quarterly, tax efficient cash-flow.
BuildEnergy II: 80-90% active income tax write off for 2025, with return of investment back in 24-30 months
Get started here: BuildWealth.investnext.com
SHIFT YOUR STACK
The Power of the Structure
Energy remains one of the most asymmetric setups of this decade, and the advantage lives in how you participate.
Choosing an asset class is the easy part. What matters most is how the deal is built. The structure is the engine that determines when you get paid, how you’re taxed, and the total return that follows.
Global demand keeps rising on oil & gas while supply remains constrained. Years of underinvestment have limited new production, and the world is still catching up. Data centers, industrial expansion, and developing economies are all pulling harder on a system that hasn’t yet recovered its balance.
For investors who pay attention to structure, the same opportunity can lead to very different outcomes. Thinking about how to layer the strategies is the goal.
The Three Layer Energy Stack
Oil & gas investing lives inside a layered ecosystem—each level offering a distinct balance of risk, reward, and tax treatment.
Let’s break it down:
1. Offshore Exploratory (most aggressive – high-risk, high-reward)
This is the venture-capital approach to energy: drilling new reserves, often overseas or deepwater, requiring massive infrastructure. Returns can reach 10x…or zero.
Primary risk: Execution
Return potential: Highest
Best for: Investors chasing asymmetric outcomes and high write-offs.
2. Proven Production (cash-flowing wells)
This is where sophisticated income investors operate—existing wells with predictable output, engineering reports, and immediate tax benefits through depletion or depreciation. Think of it as a durable yield with upside exposure.
Primary risk: Pricing
Return potential: Moderate
Best for: Investors seeking active, W-2 tax offsets and steady cash flow for years.
3. Roll-Up Strategy (engineered scale and appreciation)
This is the second-order play: acquiring smaller producers at a discount, adding engineering discipline, and consolidating under one operational platform. It creates value through efficiency, data, scale, and multiple expansion—turning technical know-how into financial leverage. Think private equity (eh hem, Buy Then Build) meets petrochemical.
Primary risk: Operational
Return potential: High
Best for: Investors focused on long-term appreciation, tax efficient cash flow, and multi-driver value creation.
Most sophisticated private investors operate between Proven Production and Roll-Up strategies. Risk is managed by data and reward is driven by execution.
This middle zone represents the heart of the modern energy opportunity: consistent yield, engineering alpha, and multiple ways to win.
Supply and Demand Outlook
Despite short-term price softness, global underinvestment continues to suppress new supply. With demand projected to exceed available production through 2030, disciplined producers are positioned to benefit as equilibrium shifts toward higher sustained prices.
Owning the Outcome
Across the Three Layer Stack, every investor is buying the same barrels, but the outcomes depend entirely on structure.
Structure determines:
When you get paid (now, later, or both)
How your income is taxed (ordinary, sheltered, or deferred)
What kind of wealth you build (cash flow, compounding, or liquidity)
That’s the essence of the private markets. You’re not just buying real, cash-flowing assets, you’re also able to allocate your outcome.
The next step is understanding how different structures express that same thesis in the real world.
CASE STUDY
Playing the Energy Imbalance
Walker Deibel during a talk on energy funds. Click to watch the full video.
Our team built two energy funds because investors don’t all need the same thing from the same asset. Oil & gas is a strong asset class with predictability, but the way you enter it determines the way you get paid.
BuildEnergy I and BuildEnergy II were designed to give investors two distinct paths—one built for long-term compounding, the other built for immediate tax relief and cash flow—while tapping into the same macro thesis.
I’m personally invested in both our funds. In this week’s study, I want to explain why I’m playing the energy game this way.
One Thesis, Two Ways to Play It
Both strategies start from the same conviction: disciplined U.S. production keeps supply tight while global demand continues to rise.
That creates opportunity, But the expression depends on what outcome you want as an investor.
Do you want to convert this year’s tax bill into productive assets?
Or use those same advantages to compound long-term appreciation?
That’s the difference between BuildEnergy II and BuildEnergy I.
Each structure expresses the same thesis with different outcomes—one tactical, one strategic. Here’s how it works.
BuildEnergy I: The Compounding Engine
BuildEnergy I was our first entry.
It’s a non-operated working-interest strategy focused on proven, producing wells with additional drilling potential.
Early income: Investors begin earning outsized cash-on-cash returns in Q3 2026,
Tax-efficient design: hrough the depletion allowance and reinvestment program, that income is tax-efficient.
Compounding value over time: Distributions are reinvested into additional production and infill opportunities.
Long-term growth: It’s built for patient capital and targets a 6–10× multiple over roughly a decade.
Our partners have averaged a 50 % IRR for their investors across four decades running this same playbook.
This play is viewed as durable wealth creation—it captures the long-term upside of an energy cycle defined by underinvestment and persistent demand.
The tradeoff is time: the payoff is substantial, but it requires holding power.
BuildEnergy II: The Tactical Accelerator
BuildEnergy II is the tactical complement.
It’s also a non-operated working-interest fund, but structured for accelerated depreciation and faster liquidity.
The fund provides an 80–90% deduction of active income in 2025, including W-2 and business earnings.
Investors begin receiving quarterly cash flow in Q2 2026, with the first 15 % of annual distributions tax-free.
The expected outcome is a 2–3× multiple and a return of capital in 24–30 months.
It’s taxed as ordinary income—but only after the depletion allowance is applied.
This is where I allocate capital when I want immediate tax relief, faster liquidity, and the ability to recycle distributions into the next opportunity.
One Framework, Two Outcomes
Together, the two form a complete approach:
BuildEnergy II converts a tax expense into cash-flowing assets.
BuildEnergy I turns that opportunity into long-term appreciation and compounding.
Both strategies prove the same point—structure is what converts a thesis into desired outcomes.
They’re built on the same barrels, the same conviction, and the same operators—but serve entirely different purposes inside a portfolio.
I’ve allocated across both because they serve different roles in my stack—one tactical, one strategic.
When investors ask how I’m navigating this cycle, this is my answer.
BuildEnergy I and II work together. The short-term efficiency of one fuels the long-term growth of the other.
It’s a structure designed for both conviction and control.
Want to join us? Energy II allows for 80-90% 2025 ACTIVE income write offs, but it’s closing at the end of the month. Book a call here with Mike, our director of Investor Relations.
THE PLAYBOOK
How to Decide Which Energy Play Fits Your Stack
When you look at any asset class, start with one question: ‘What do I want my money to do?’
In oil & gas, that first decision changes everything.
Step 1 – Define Your Goal
Begin by matching the structure to your intention.
If you want to keep more of what you’ve already earned, focus on tax optimization.
If you want to multiply what you’ve already invested, focus on long-term compounding.
Both approaches can build towards wealth . The key is aligning your investment with —where you are in your financial journey and what outcome matters most right now.
Step 2 - Choose The Vehicle To Match Your Goal
Both structures use the same supply-and-demand imbalance to drive returns but accomplish different goals.
BuildEnergy II is the tactical move, transforming this year’s earned income into immediate tax relief and faster liquidity.
BuildEnergy I is the strategic play, compounding tax-efficient cash flow into a larger, appreciating asset base over time–and paying you while it builds.
Step 3 – Stack the Two Together
Sophisticated investors rarely choose between them; they sequence them.
Option 1 – Run Them in Parallel (Income + Growth)
Use Fund II for tax optimization in 2025 while positioning Fund I for durable growth. This creates both liquidity and long-term exposure to the same thesis.
Option 2 – Roll Fund II into Fund I (The Compounding Flywheel)
Use distributions and returned capital from Fund II to reinvest into Fund I-style assets. The result is a self-funding cycle:
tax savings → cash flow → equity growth → repeat.
This is how private investors bridge short-term efficiency with long-term wealth creation.
Step 4 – Design Your Stack
Ask yourself three questions before allocating capital:
Am I optimizing this year’s taxes or the next decade’s wealth?
Do I want liquidity early or appreciation later?
How much of my income is active versus already invested?
Your answers reveal your path.
Public investors hope the market cooperates. Private investors design outcomes.
THE WEALTH REBELLION
“In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity.” — Sun Tzu
Every cycle creates noise. Prices swing. Narratives shift. Institutions chase momentum.
Retail investors wait for certainty. They look for clear signals, rising prices, and validation before they act.
Markets don’t reward patience. hey reward preparation.
Structure-driven investors think differently. They study cycles, position early, and choose a structure to decide when and how they get paid.
The energy setup right now is a textbook case. Supply is tight. Demand is rising. Prices will move—it’s only a matter of timing and structure.
By owning the right vehicles—cash-flowing wells, tax-advantaged funds, and roll-ups engineered for appreciation—you capture both the cycle and the compounding.
The current imbalance is an opportunity for those who understand design. The cash flow is real. The tax advantages are powerful. The assets are tangible.
That’s the power of ownership. When you hold real assets, you don’t watch from the sidelines. You play in the game.
In public markets, the story changes every quarter.
In private markets, you write your own.
WHAT WE ARE READING
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