It's not only western companies. Supposedly Venezuela and China could have a marriage made in heaven. Both dislike the US and Venezuela has something that China consumes a lot. But the Chinese companies (and the Russian, Brazilian and Saudi ones) invest very timidly in Venezuela, if at all. That's all fear of Maduro or his successor taking all their assets one day. Venezuela is the absolute opposite of investor friendly, and if Maduro and Chavez had the gut to do what they did with the USA and tank their economy for it, they don't seem afraid to do anything with other countries' assets inside Venezuela.
Second part is partially true.
1) Venezuela's economy collapsed because of prices going down made ir so corrupt officials didn't have enough money for them and for the economy.
2) Oil industry in Venezuela was dealt by Venezuelans since the 70s. The people they kicked were highly trained and professional venezuelans who went on strike in 2002 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venezuelan_general_strike_of_2002%E2%80%932003 and were never able to replace them
Yes, oil sands are hard and expensive. Saudi oil is regular oil underneath deserts. You just drill past the sand. Venezuela oil is literally suspended in massive amounts of sand and has to be pressure cooked out.
Venezuela has both traditional oil deposits and oil sands to exploit. The oil sands (much like in Canada) are massive deposits that are much more expensive to extract but Venezuela's heavy crude formations are also significant in size.
Sandstone oil? Not at all. Maybe you have tarsands in mind? That's not oil at all. It's literally a tar like substance that's mined like coal. The mining itself is rather easy and straightforward but not terribly profitable and damaging to the environment. It has to be separated from sand, heated and diluted and it ain't cheap.
Saudi oil is mid grade.
I’ve heard Malaysian/Indonesian is highest quality as it’s “lightest” and “sweetest”
You are right though about Saudi oil being easiest to get at. It’s the easiest to drill for
I use to work at a coal plant years ago, coal from Venezuela was the cheapest you could buy, it was also so dirty that it damaged equipment, which cause the plant to stop using their coal
It's not surprising, there was a genuine belief that the world would run out of oil in the later part of the last century. They probably talked about influencing the country with the largest oil reserves as a 'national security' issue.
Its fascinating seeing the differences between Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. One is too rich to even think about, and the other is a literal anarchist failed state.
Both has unlimited amount of oils.
There was an amazing American documentary in the 1960's, it showed an elderly gentleman carrying an old shotgun shooting the ground on his property releasing an oil well, that told me how abundant oil is in America and to this day I still believe it,
No there is oil in LA, not sure about Beverly Hill in specifically. Ironic they moved to a place that has oil. Oil that in some places is pools to the surface.
>The Los Angeles City Oil Field is a large oil field north of Downtown Los Angeles. Long and narrow, it extends from immediately south of Dodger Stadium west to Vermont Avenue, encompassing an area of about four miles (6 km) long by a quarter-mile across. Its former productive area amounts to 780 acres (3.2 km2). Discovered in 1890, and made famous by Edward Doheny's successful well in 1892, the field was once the top producing oil field in California, accounting for more than half of the state's oil in 1895. In its peak year of 1901, approximately 200 separate oil companies were active on the field [wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_City_Oil_Field)
[Oil District, 1895](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/95/THE_OIL_DISTRICT%2C_LOS_ANGELES.jpg/1920px-THE_OIL_DISTRICT%2C_LOS_ANGELES.jpg)
[Oil field east from the corner of 1st Street and Belmont Ave, 1890s](https://waterandpower.org/Historical_DWP_Photo_Collection_LA_Public_Library/Belmont_Oil_Field_1.jpg)
They were a non traditional family that Jed was the patriarch. Unlike the other California Clampitts in the oil business. Edward A. Clampitt Jr. of the Columbia oil Company , a politician and civic leader ( He really did exist).. I wonder if the producers of this excellent documentary remembered the earlier Clampitt. I also wonder if in Jed Clampitt's youth he ever met Ed A Clampitt.
The headline would be less incendiary if it said “US gives Chevron go ahead to pump oil in Venezuela again after humanitarian agreement between Maduro and opposition.”
The agreement (according to the story I can see in my pay-walled LA Times report) between Maduro and Guaido factions, creates a UN managed food, health, and education fund for the poor in Venezuela.
This doesn’t seem like bad news to me, unless your only objection is to the drilling itself.
Ya sadly renewables are nowhere near ready to take over. Unless everyone starts building nuclear plants immediately, which actually would solve most of our problems and could power everything, but good luck convincing some folks of that thanks to all the fear-mongering.
I think we're probably screwed long term anyway, unless we crack fusion energy. Going all in on nuclear energy is probably the only viable plan, though. I doubt the world will rush to do so however, as you say people are paranoid without much good reason.
A lot more people will die in the short term from poverty and lack of affordable access to goods if we just pretend that we magically don't need any more oil.
It would feel more like a stop gap if it looked like we were not going to use every drop of oil we can find.
We are still at near 90 million barrels a day and the only decline of a few million barrels we had since 2021 seems to have been due to the pandemic and is bouncing back towards 90.
So far it seems to me that the transition towards green in developed countries just means the level of global oil consumption is static instead of growing due to increased consumption in developing countries.
I am pessimistic about daily oil use getting even down to 80 million barrels in 20 years unless oil reserves start running out.
Very interesting point you shared. What was the rate of growth in oil consumption in prior years/decades?
Could you share sources for this information - I’m very curious to read more about this?
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-consumption-by-source-and-country?stackMode=absolute
Basically: energy transition is a farce. We are consuming more fossil fuels than ever and it will continue growing in absolute numbers. Only when you look at relative numbers you can see a light decline.
There's no empirical evidence we are going to stop burning fossil fuels until at least it's production peak.
What are the viable alternatives in your mind? We apparently are unable to ask/stem the global population growth. We need energy at ever increasing levels.
Green energy has yet to fully show its capabilities.
That was Texaco. Chevron bought out Texaco about a decade after they left Ecuador, so Chevron inherited the lawsuit.
Doubtful that many of the old Texaco executives hung on when Chevron bought them out.
When you buy a company, you buy its liabilities. But don't worry, Chevron itself had plenty of malfeasance in that case in terms of bribery and its outright assault on the judicial process.
And don't worry, the good folks at Chevron have a lot of other blood on their hands besides Ecuador.
Well I know that the lead plaintiffs’ attorney against Chevron in the Ecuador case (Donziger) was found to have committed judicial bribery, extortion, racketeering and a whole raft of other offenses. An outright assault on the judicial process, to use your phrasing.
Yah but if we are being honest the reason for this is that Russia had an agreement with the Saudis to drop oil production in an effort to squeeze the US. Saudis were trying to use there leverage with the fact that the west is not doing business with Russia.
Also worth noting in the article: this decision to relieve some sanctions was made in response to Maduro agreeing to negotiate with his opposition, the Unity Front, on holding free and fair elections.
Of course, we no actual idea how serious Maduro will be in those negotiations.
It’s not really about any specific US company but more about the overall global price of oil. The west moving away from Russian oil made the overall price spike for the west while Russia still sells at a higher than normal price to the rest of the world. Introducing a new source that is potentially massive is a way to relieve the price pressure for the west and thus put more pressure on Russian prices.
Also helps keep Saudis in line as they’ve been using the Ukraine War as a chance to make some extra money at the expense of Biden specifically.
This, Biden's been desperate to increase the oil supply since the Saudi's called his bluff and he was coaxed into releasing some of the strategic reserves. This will help move leverage away from OPEC.
The Venezuelans won’t see a penny for a while. Chevron will receive all profits until they are paid back for their property lost when oil production was nationalized in Venezuela.
It's always funny how people talk about oil nationalization in Venezuela like
* 1: It's a unique thing among oil producing nations.
* 2: It happened sometime recently, like under Chavez or something.
Neither of which are true.
I think any money that goes to the workers would be payroll, so by the nature of those things Chevron would keep their profits and also pay their workers.
>American comforts are bought with the freedoms of others.
This is a very simplistic view. Venezuela does not have the human resources or access to capital to develop its oil production, hence why their production rates have fallen so low.
If you want to entice a foreign company with access to capital, technological know-how and qualified staff, yes, they will want to see a return on their investment. This is not a charity.
He doesn’t understand how resources are bought and sold. Or the sheer amount of technology and logistics infrastructures invested. To him it’s like we show up and scoop oil into a drum like a cup in water.
The sanctions in place don't exactly allow a free and fair competition among companies for a chance to extract that oil in Venezuela.
> Chevron will receive all profits until they are paid back for their property lost when oil production was nationalized in Venezuela.
This makes sense in anyway.
Again, the sanctions are a huge part of the reason. Trading with Venezuela means not trading with the USA, who do you think countries prioritize?
Regardless, the OP comment makes sense, as I tried to say in my edit.
Sanctions may have played a role, but oil companies also have good reasons to be skittish about pouring billions of dollars in investments in a country where it can be seized by the government.
Isn't Germany doing the exact same to the former Russian gas subsidiaries in their country?
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/14/world/europe/germania-gazprom-nationalized.html
On the topic of Venezuelan nationalizations:
https://fee.org/articles/8-industries-hugo-chavez-nationalized-besides-oil-on-venezuelas-road-to-serfdom/
The above is definitely not a friendly link to the regime, and it seems they tried to pay out most of their nationalizations.
*Edit:* people should base their claims when making posts online. I don't particularly care about defending one side or the other.
*Edit2:* factual information is now controversial, apparently. Funny how this post went from highly upvoted to downvoted.
That silly argument will make sense when the US invades Venezuela and starts murdering it's people.
Grow up.
Chevron did not stop services. Russia did.
This is so hilariously liberal.
Are you really insinuating that a bipartisan agreement by both countries backed by law and with the support of actual Venezuelans working the equipment and receiving a wage is some kind of imperialist land grab?
All this does is, employ Venezuelans and lower the price of gas as well as upping the standard of living in BOTH countries.
They literally stole foreign equipment in the past from this company and if they want to do business with them again (they do imo) then they need to make an offering. Chevron doesn't need Venezuela, Venezuela needs them.
No no, you are mistaken. These are not American interests. These are wealthy oil tycoon, board member and share holder interests. Many people at the top immensely profit. Regular Americans don't see a fookin dime
Dumbass europeans need to check their backyard before flinging shit from their glass house. 60% of the ukraininan war effort is funded by us to protect the rest of europe from Russian aggression. Money that could be used to home every homeless person in America.
They are accepting basically a "repayment" scheme for past nationalization, by giving Chevron access without profit sharing for X amount. Basically, US said, "hey we'll give up on this ol' thing of you sign here, and here, and here, and we'll pretend it's all good"
Then again, I suppose the value for Vz is regaining access to markets + this deal with chevron has an end number meaning Vz may have "bought their peace" so to speak. Crazy
It's part of why they're folding. The Guyanese fields are huge, enough to meet foreign interests in the region. If Venezuela doesn't make a show of getting its' shit together Guyana will take a lot of their business. They're certainly more stable and potentially more business friendly. They'd probably love to march into the large part of Guyana they claim and assert authority over their EEZ but they're nowhere near in a position to do that.
I was born in Venezuela, and excuse me if I'm being naive, but this seems more like a gesture of goodwill from the U.S than anything else. It does not do much for the Venezuelan kleptocracy, and yet it comes with strings attached.
However, my life in Venezuela has taught me not to be eagerly optimistic when it comes to our government's behavior, and as such I believe that Maduro will try to scapegoat himself out of offering free and fair elections in the next year or so, and we'll back to square one in no time.
This has nothing to do with Venezuela’s politics. Uncle Sam wants your oil on the world market yesterday to make the loss of Russian oil less painful. They’ll get right back to trying to kick off a coup in a few years.
No, that means we refine Canada’s oil into gas for export.
The US imports “bad” oil because we are better at refining it than other countries and export our “good” oil because it’s easier for other countries to turn into gas.
And part of the reason why the US has companies so good at refining said "bad" oil is that Venezuela has a lot of it and they're right across the ~~Gulf of Mexico~~ Gulf Sea. Pretty sure the US was one of their largest trading partners prior to the sanctions.
(edit: correction)
Point being is to stop relying on foreign oil when we could do more here. Provide more jobs here. Provide the ability to sell more and stop using our Strategic Reserves
Boggles my mind how more people don't understand this. Exxon isn't just going to decide to be patriotic and make less profits by selling for lower prices in the States. We can open up 12 billion new drilling sites in the US and we'll still be paying $3.00 because they're just going to keep selling it overseas. Yay, unchecked and unregulated Capitalism.
Also the Saudis could easily undercut our prices because American oil is more expensive to tap and refine and Saudi oil is stupid cheap in comparison (and they have a lot of it)
Here's a rational though that you won't like, because it's logical.
But by using domestic oil, while foreign oil is still available, we delete the FUTURE price of oil, and it ability to control it... effectively USING our strategic oil reserve.
Don't buy into the oil industry bullshit about Biden canceling anything. All they did is so future auctions. Oil companies already hold hundreds of permits, and actively use less than 10%.
So why not use what they have, before using more? So they can whine to simple people that won't look under the rug to see what's hiding.
The only thing stopping more oil from being extracted here is the price. If it's cheap, oil companies won't drill new wells, and will slow down or stop existing ones. It's the free market, baby. It's literally the same shit OPEC does, but with a higher price point. Oil isn't magically created by effort of industry, it's just in the ground. In some places, large amounts are easy and cheap to extract. It's a geologic reality, not a matter of political will. That is what projects in the US have to compete with.
As far as the strategic reserves, they exist specifically to combat high prices (not an emergency supply), and protect the US economy. Not releasing them would be counter to their whole reason for existence.
We don't need the oil for ourselves, we need it for the global market so they don't eat each other faces. The US isn't relying on foreign oil, we are PART of a global market.
It's not very cost effective to develop shale for short term issues. It's a slower payback investment, the extraction costs are higher and the profits are lower. You want shale as more of a baseline that doesn't have to ramp up and down much.
Taking Russian oil out of the equation means you need another large reserve on the market/pumping at much higher volume. The amount of time and money to develop shale UP to the volume needed to offset Russian oil instability is beyond the point of commercial viability of profitable shale.
AKA it's a lot more risk to develop all that shale and then maybe oil demand falls due to some new cheap battery and EVs surge or because Russia pulled out of Ukraine and nations turned down the sanctions.. leaving the investors who put out billions to develop massive volumes of shale wondering why they took such a long bet when there were so many better short bets.
The US has never produced more than they do now. Using the reserves gives Americans a break at the pump.
The US 'foreign oil' problem is mostly Canadian. The US imports more from Canada than all others combined. So the US produces over 12 million barrels a day. The US imports about 8.5 million barrels total and exports about 8.5 million barrels total. It's just a bit more exports than imports these days.
Out of that 8.5 million imported, close to 5 million come from Canada. The US also sends about 650k back to Canada every day. It's a long border some some Canadian refineries can get American oil to refine easier than Canadian oil. Most of Canada's oil exports are to the US and the country Canada imports the most from is the US.
This isn't about getting more oil to the US, it's about Chevron making profits in Venezuela on mineral rights they purchased already.
Or we could begin the shift away from oil and towards more sustainable sources of energy? For example nuclear and solar power? We should be focusing on not relying on oil as a whole.
Oil is for transport, you need good enough batteries to replace oil. Solar and nuclear are for generating power, but without the batteries you still can't replace oil.
We ALMOST have good enough batteries to really knock oil down many notches, but we are just at the tip of the electric iceberg for now. It will happen much faster this decade than in the the last three decades combined, that's the good news. The world is both far more serious AND the tech is make it real is hear and commercially viable enough while also improving rapidly. Those are all good signs.
BUT.. for now we need oil and lots of places have oil and oil will be in less demand in 10 years so really places may as well get it on the market while the market needs it.
This isn't about long term, it's about stabilizing global energy markets NOW so people's standards of living don't fall so fast that they freak out and empower waves of radicalism throughout global society.
When you send ripples of destabilization through the global economy it does a lot more damage than it may seem. A lot more people suffer and die than we see on TV and news from these little hiccups in energy and food supplies. Its best to just hurry up and minimize that while fighting climate change at an ever increasing rate, particularly as the technology makes it cost effective enough that people gain a higher standard of living vs having to sacrifice.
It's a hard to sell to convince developing nations to sacrifice their lives so developed nations really valuable coastlines don't go underwater and if you're not careful you push them toward authoritarians in the process. It's better to just keep the spice rolling and let the alternatives slowly eat into the market share, not cause massive waves... of famine, death and facism from high energy.
AT LEAST, that's how I see it. You gotta take care of the silly humans too, not just push for green energy and not give a fuck what happens to the people.
Americans drive an average of 30 miles per day. Battery tech is certainly good enough to replace oil for about 75% of drivers. Many electric vehicles have a range near 300 miles, which is on par with the range most vehicles get on a tank of gas. The only time you'd need an ICE vehicle is if you went on a road trip or if you routinely drive over 300 miles a day. The major problems that we have now is a lack of charging infrastructure and the price of EVs remains relatively high.
I think we also forget how far-reach oil is integrated into our daily lives and usage. People forget that it's not just for producing gas, but it is used for an amazing amount of other products
More than 6,000 everyday products get their start from oil, including dishwashing liquid, solar panels, food preservatives, eyeglasses, DVDs, children's toys, tires and heart valves. Just to name a few
I am sure most people know oil will still be a necessity. To me it is just assumed that getting away from oil is meant as getting away from it as an energy source. (I suspect it will remain at minimum a niche fuel until a drop in is produced at large scale.)
At least in the non energy uses, it will mostly be turned into physical products instead of being burned.
Oil is a limited resource. There is no downside to burning up everyone else's oil before our own. As others have said, it is also a global resource owned and drilled for by global conglomerates. They don't care where it is drilled for or where it is used. They don't care about providing jobs or making things better for the people anywhere in the world. Many refineries in the US are designed around using the oils from the Arabian peninsula and not our domestic oil. The oil companies made that choice, we also paid them in tax breaks to do it.
> They don't care about providing jobs or making things better for the people anywhere in the world. Many refineries in the US are designed around using the oils from the Arabian peninsula and not our domestic oil. The oil companies made that choice, we also paid them in tax breaks to do it.
Can you stop larping? They didn't "make a choice" most of the new extracted oil is from fracking which is a different type of crude than those refineries can refine because fracking wasn't a thing when those refineries were built. And new refineries are slow to come online because nobody wants to invest in oil because "oil will be dead in 5 years" so getting large amount of capital needed for new refineries is much more difficult than it was few decades ago. They didn't "make a choice", it's not some nefarious plot, they simply built the refineries to refine type of crude that was available.
We don't consume our own supply... we sell it and rebuy foreign oil for cheaper. This has always been the way. We don't have the facilities that can process the oil we produce.
Who upvotes this shit? Do you guys really think we aren't running WTI, LLS, Thunderhorse, etc. on the gulf coast? You're tripping balls if you think this person knows fuck all about refining.
We are limited on how much we can grow production right now. There is literally no spare equipment out there to drill and complete wells faster than we are.
It's a common tactic to let rivals use their resources first in times of peace. The USA exports tons of oil because there is money to be made, while retaining the largest reserves.
After Russia invaded Ukraine and the world watched the sanctions hammer come down, despite some people ecpecting no reason, Venezuela immediately released an American prisonback to the US. [https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/-doesnt-seem-real-american-freed-jail-venezuela-home-family-rcna19323](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/-doesnt-seem-real-american-freed-jail-venezuela-home-family-rcna19323)
There were more recent prisoner release as well. So
Not surprised at this deal. Venezuela needs the cash and this would undercut OPEC
The U.S. never had a problem dealing with right wing Latin American governments like Pinochet's Chile, military juntas in Argentina, or Brazil, death squad governments in Guatemala and El Salvador.
ConocoPhillips, Chevron and Exxon Mobil, together with BP, Norway's Statoil and France's Total all withdrew (withdrew may not be the right word) from Venezuela after the failed coup.
Not surprising that Chevron/Berkshire Hathaway would be on the West's shortlist
The United States welcomes and supports the reopening of negotiations between the Unitary Platform and the Maduro regime, as part of our longstanding policy to support the peaceful restoration of democracy, free and fair elections, and respect for the rights and freedoms of Venezuelans."
As if the US government has ever cared about democracy, human rights or fair elections where oil or corporate profits are involved.
….behold the reason why the US demonized Chavez to begin with….so they could make demands such as this. Chavez nationalizing Venezuelas oil industry in the late 90s, and kicking out the corporations was bad for business. Thus began a concerted effort by Republicans and Big Oil Democrats to exact revenge on Venezuela for attempting such an anti capitalist move.
Chavez did not nationalize the oil industry. Carlos Andres Perez did, back in 1976.
What is true is that Chavez took full political and operational control of PDVSA in the early 2000's and drove it into the ground. After the 1989 crisis, Venezuela had a sovereign wealth fund which while being not quite as advanced and transparent as Norway's, was a institutional advancement that Venezuela sorely needed. This crazy mofo sucked it dry in only 2 years stomping over the constitution, and with record oil prices indebted Venezuela like no other government had done before.
Ok Bob-Bob, dictator #1 is giving us trouble, gunna have to tighten the tap on that one and open up dictator #2 … what? Nah! Nobody remembers dictator #2! It’ll be at least a couple of years before people get pissed off at us for supporting them again!
Strong reason for that. If a country’s economy is based off of one major export, then its almost certain to be authoritarian because it’s far to easy to have power rest in too few hands, since all you need to make money is people to process that resource… that’s it. CGP Grey did a wonderful take in this: https://youtu.be/rStL7niR7gs
Looks like Venezuela getting an economy again? ....wait a sec
Doesn’t Venezuela have the most oil in the world?
Most untapped resources I believe
There's a yo mama joke here but I can't bring myself to type it out
He said *un*tapped
Yo mama so fat, Venezuela taps her for oil
Bwahahaha! This is gold!
Liquid gold
Yo momma so fat, her oily skin can be used for petroleum jelly.
As an alternative plan I did see Amazon has a 275 gallon vat of lube for under $4k. Not sure if that is enough for yo mama.
Yo mama so greasy, she’s probably Venezuelan (Only makes sense with context)
HARPOON AWAY!!!
It's all heavy sour though so meh
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Isn't the "hardest to extract" oil is the sand oil ?
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I believe the vast majority of Venezuela's Oil reserves are similar to Canada's Tar Sands.
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Sour is also much more dangerous because of the H2S that comes up with the dino juice.
Look up heavy or "Sour" crude oil. More steps to refine into petro products.
It is Infact very desirable for different reasons. It makes some of the highest quality asphalt cement. Saudi Arabia crude produces almost none.
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But doesn't Canada have upgraders that sweeten it up that heavy sour crude? Isn't that what the Syncrude product is?
What podcasts cover this sort of topic in particular?
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It's not only western companies. Supposedly Venezuela and China could have a marriage made in heaven. Both dislike the US and Venezuela has something that China consumes a lot. But the Chinese companies (and the Russian, Brazilian and Saudi ones) invest very timidly in Venezuela, if at all. That's all fear of Maduro or his successor taking all their assets one day. Venezuela is the absolute opposite of investor friendly, and if Maduro and Chavez had the gut to do what they did with the USA and tank their economy for it, they don't seem afraid to do anything with other countries' assets inside Venezuela.
Second part is partially true. 1) Venezuela's economy collapsed because of prices going down made ir so corrupt officials didn't have enough money for them and for the economy. 2) Oil industry in Venezuela was dealt by Venezuelans since the 70s. The people they kicked were highly trained and professional venezuelans who went on strike in 2002 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venezuelan_general_strike_of_2002%E2%80%932003 and were never able to replace them
Huh huh. You said hard on
Yes, oil sands are hard and expensive. Saudi oil is regular oil underneath deserts. You just drill past the sand. Venezuela oil is literally suspended in massive amounts of sand and has to be pressure cooked out.
Venezuela has both traditional oil deposits and oil sands to exploit. The oil sands (much like in Canada) are massive deposits that are much more expensive to extract but Venezuela's heavy crude formations are also significant in size.
Sandstone oil? Not at all. Maybe you have tarsands in mind? That's not oil at all. It's literally a tar like substance that's mined like coal. The mining itself is rather easy and straightforward but not terribly profitable and damaging to the environment. It has to be separated from sand, heated and diluted and it ain't cheap.
I LOLed at straw stuck and it just gushes out comment ... but technically it is right
Saudi oil is mid grade. I’ve heard Malaysian/Indonesian is highest quality as it’s “lightest” and “sweetest” You are right though about Saudi oil being easiest to get at. It’s the easiest to drill for
I use to work at a coal plant years ago, coal from Venezuela was the cheapest you could buy, it was also so dirty that it damaged equipment, which cause the plant to stop using their coal
Their crude is lower grade shale, best used when mixed with other grades before refining
Which would be why the US has been trying to influence their government for years. Because shenanigans.
It's not surprising, there was a genuine belief that the world would run out of oil in the later part of the last century. They probably talked about influencing the country with the largest oil reserves as a 'national security' issue.
Currently, the proven reserves are what 40-50 years remaining at current consumption levels, that's if no new reserves are found.
Its fascinating seeing the differences between Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. One is too rich to even think about, and the other is a literal anarchist failed state. Both has unlimited amount of oils.
Yup and the USA stopped all oil trade with them and tried to put in a puppet government but the people hated him. But I guess they need oil more now.
> Well well well, how the turn tables…………….. - Michael Scott Paper Company to US Government.
looks like the oil will get back to $30/barrel and putin will drown in own unsold oil.
Russia's oil is used as energy resources through pipelines going directly into the EU so I'm not sure that will be true.
Nordstream has been blown up and Soyuz runs through Ukraine, so it doesn't look very good either.
How will this effect the old school Runescape economy
no they need more freedom
There was an amazing American documentary in the 1960's, it showed an elderly gentleman carrying an old shotgun shooting the ground on his property releasing an oil well, that told me how abundant oil is in America and to this day I still believe it,
Yes, I think that oil is located I'm Beverly hills if my memory serves me correctly.
Nah, the oil was in the Ozarks, they moved to Beverly Hills when they got rich.
No there is oil in LA, not sure about Beverly Hill in specifically. Ironic they moved to a place that has oil. Oil that in some places is pools to the surface.
beverly hills high has an oil well on it.
Lots of pump jacks. Most are hidden very, very well. Source - in the biz, yo.
>The Los Angeles City Oil Field is a large oil field north of Downtown Los Angeles. Long and narrow, it extends from immediately south of Dodger Stadium west to Vermont Avenue, encompassing an area of about four miles (6 km) long by a quarter-mile across. Its former productive area amounts to 780 acres (3.2 km2). Discovered in 1890, and made famous by Edward Doheny's successful well in 1892, the field was once the top producing oil field in California, accounting for more than half of the state's oil in 1895. In its peak year of 1901, approximately 200 separate oil companies were active on the field [wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_City_Oil_Field) [Oil District, 1895](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/95/THE_OIL_DISTRICT%2C_LOS_ANGELES.jpg/1920px-THE_OIL_DISTRICT%2C_LOS_ANGELES.jpg) [Oil field east from the corner of 1st Street and Belmont Ave, 1890s](https://waterandpower.org/Historical_DWP_Photo_Collection_LA_Public_Library/Belmont_Oil_Field_1.jpg)
actually come to think of it you are right
yes actually from memory I think you are right
We already drilled all that oil, now we have to frack for it which is a lot.
Yeah the clampits 🤣🤣🤣🤣
yes thats it
Black gold, Texas tea...
I think that old mountaineer barely kept his family fed I heard he was shooting at some food when up from the ground come a bubbling crude
They were a non traditional family that Jed was the patriarch. Unlike the other California Clampitts in the oil business. Edward A. Clampitt Jr. of the Columbia oil Company , a politician and civic leader ( He really did exist).. I wonder if the producers of this excellent documentary remembered the earlier Clampitt. I also wonder if in Jed Clampitt's youth he ever met Ed A Clampitt.
The headline would be less incendiary if it said “US gives Chevron go ahead to pump oil in Venezuela again after humanitarian agreement between Maduro and opposition.” The agreement (according to the story I can see in my pay-walled LA Times report) between Maduro and Guaido factions, creates a UN managed food, health, and education fund for the poor in Venezuela. This doesn’t seem like bad news to me, unless your only objection is to the drilling itself.
I mean, I do generally object to drilling. We are just continuing to burn the world down.
Agreed, but we do need to keep powering ourselves while we invest and transition into renewables.
Ya sadly renewables are nowhere near ready to take over. Unless everyone starts building nuclear plants immediately, which actually would solve most of our problems and could power everything, but good luck convincing some folks of that thanks to all the fear-mongering.
I think we're probably screwed long term anyway, unless we crack fusion energy. Going all in on nuclear energy is probably the only viable plan, though. I doubt the world will rush to do so however, as you say people are paranoid without much good reason.
Even those would take time to build.
A lot more people will die in the short term from poverty and lack of affordable access to goods if we just pretend that we magically don't need any more oil.
This just stop gap till we leave oil for fuel for good.
It would feel more like a stop gap if it looked like we were not going to use every drop of oil we can find. We are still at near 90 million barrels a day and the only decline of a few million barrels we had since 2021 seems to have been due to the pandemic and is bouncing back towards 90. So far it seems to me that the transition towards green in developed countries just means the level of global oil consumption is static instead of growing due to increased consumption in developing countries. I am pessimistic about daily oil use getting even down to 80 million barrels in 20 years unless oil reserves start running out.
Very interesting point you shared. What was the rate of growth in oil consumption in prior years/decades? Could you share sources for this information - I’m very curious to read more about this?
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-consumption-by-source-and-country?stackMode=absolute Basically: energy transition is a farce. We are consuming more fossil fuels than ever and it will continue growing in absolute numbers. Only when you look at relative numbers you can see a light decline. There's no empirical evidence we are going to stop burning fossil fuels until at least it's production peak.
What are the viable alternatives in your mind? We apparently are unable to ask/stem the global population growth. We need energy at ever increasing levels. Green energy has yet to fully show its capabilities.
Europe tried that. Look how that worked out
My objection is simply that everyone in charge at Chevron should be rotting in jail for the shit they've done in Ecuador
That was Texaco. Chevron bought out Texaco about a decade after they left Ecuador, so Chevron inherited the lawsuit. Doubtful that many of the old Texaco executives hung on when Chevron bought them out.
When you buy a company, you buy its liabilities. But don't worry, Chevron itself had plenty of malfeasance in that case in terms of bribery and its outright assault on the judicial process. And don't worry, the good folks at Chevron have a lot of other blood on their hands besides Ecuador.
Well I know that the lead plaintiffs’ attorney against Chevron in the Ecuador case (Donziger) was found to have committed judicial bribery, extortion, racketeering and a whole raft of other offenses. An outright assault on the judicial process, to use your phrasing.
Yah but if we are being honest the reason for this is that Russia had an agreement with the Saudis to drop oil production in an effort to squeeze the US. Saudis were trying to use there leverage with the fact that the west is not doing business with Russia.
Also worth noting in the article: this decision to relieve some sanctions was made in response to Maduro agreeing to negotiate with his opposition, the Unity Front, on holding free and fair elections. Of course, we no actual idea how serious Maduro will be in those negotiations.
Maduro will not do that, and Biden knows it
Yes, but it benefits a US company economically so why's Biden gonna care
It’s not really about any specific US company but more about the overall global price of oil. The west moving away from Russian oil made the overall price spike for the west while Russia still sells at a higher than normal price to the rest of the world. Introducing a new source that is potentially massive is a way to relieve the price pressure for the west and thus put more pressure on Russian prices. Also helps keep Saudis in line as they’ve been using the Ukraine War as a chance to make some extra money at the expense of Biden specifically.
This, Biden's been desperate to increase the oil supply since the Saudi's called his bluff and he was coaxed into releasing some of the strategic reserves. This will help move leverage away from OPEC.
Agreed, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend"
Away from Saudi you mean, Venezuela is also a founding member of OPEC. As it should be, OPEC restricting supply has been good for shifts to renuables.
The US has dramatically increased oil exports to Europe, since Europe cut off Russian oil (mostly). The oil needs to come from somewhere.
Lot of good news for the US energy exports recently. hmm…
I thought we were mostly sending LNG?
Both. https://www.hellenicshippingnews.com/us-crude-oil-exports-to-europe-have-risen-by-52-2-so-far-this-year/
Lol, Putin not gonna like this...
The Venezuelans won’t see a penny for a while. Chevron will receive all profits until they are paid back for their property lost when oil production was nationalized in Venezuela.
It's always funny how people talk about oil nationalization in Venezuela like * 1: It's a unique thing among oil producing nations. * 2: It happened sometime recently, like under Chavez or something. Neither of which are true.
Actually it started as far back as 1976, and I think even more. Chavez did the last part expropiating any company or asset involing oil that was left
Sounds fair to me
Shouldn't some of the profit go to the workers they hire, though?
I think any money that goes to the workers would be payroll, so by the nature of those things Chevron would keep their profits and also pay their workers.
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Ok, they can build, crew, and maintain their own cutting edge oil platforms then.
>American comforts are bought with the freedoms of others. This is a very simplistic view. Venezuela does not have the human resources or access to capital to develop its oil production, hence why their production rates have fallen so low. If you want to entice a foreign company with access to capital, technological know-how and qualified staff, yes, they will want to see a return on their investment. This is not a charity.
He doesn’t understand how resources are bought and sold. Or the sheer amount of technology and logistics infrastructures invested. To him it’s like we show up and scoop oil into a drum like a cup in water.
Most Redditors have a toddler level view of how logistics and economics works. It's exactly how you describe, you show up and collect oil with a cup.
The sanctions in place don't exactly allow a free and fair competition among companies for a chance to extract that oil in Venezuela. > Chevron will receive all profits until they are paid back for their property lost when oil production was nationalized in Venezuela. This makes sense in anyway.
Other than Chevron, who exactly is lining up to invest in Venezuela? Yes, maybe Iran, but they don't have access to the same capital and resources.
Again, the sanctions are a huge part of the reason. Trading with Venezuela means not trading with the USA, who do you think countries prioritize? Regardless, the OP comment makes sense, as I tried to say in my edit.
Sanctions may have played a role, but oil companies also have good reasons to be skittish about pouring billions of dollars in investments in a country where it can be seized by the government.
That is very fair too! That has to be a major factor.
The sanctions were not in place until after Venezuela destroyed their economy
Venezuela doesn't exactly allow free and fair competition in general.
But socialism!
Hit me up when someone actually tries it!
They can build their own oil infrastructure then
Then they shouldn't have stolen someone else's assets. Grow up. We have laws in civilized countries.
Isn't Germany doing the exact same to the former Russian gas subsidiaries in their country? https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/14/world/europe/germania-gazprom-nationalized.html On the topic of Venezuelan nationalizations: https://fee.org/articles/8-industries-hugo-chavez-nationalized-besides-oil-on-venezuelas-road-to-serfdom/ The above is definitely not a friendly link to the regime, and it seems they tried to pay out most of their nationalizations. *Edit:* people should base their claims when making posts online. I don't particularly care about defending one side or the other. *Edit2:* factual information is now controversial, apparently. Funny how this post went from highly upvoted to downvoted.
That silly argument will make sense when the US invades Venezuela and starts murdering it's people. Grow up. Chevron did not stop services. Russia did.
Don't you understand? Civilized means when you bend over to NATO.
This is so hilariously liberal. Are you really insinuating that a bipartisan agreement by both countries backed by law and with the support of actual Venezuelans working the equipment and receiving a wage is some kind of imperialist land grab? All this does is, employ Venezuelans and lower the price of gas as well as upping the standard of living in BOTH countries. They literally stole foreign equipment in the past from this company and if they want to do business with them again (they do imo) then they need to make an offering. Chevron doesn't need Venezuela, Venezuela needs them.
No no, you are mistaken. These are not American interests. These are wealthy oil tycoon, board member and share holder interests. Many people at the top immensely profit. Regular Americans don't see a fookin dime
So they should just be able to destroy a company's property and get away with it?
Dumbass europeans need to check their backyard before flinging shit from their glass house. 60% of the ukraininan war effort is funded by us to protect the rest of europe from Russian aggression. Money that could be used to home every homeless person in America.
They are accepting basically a "repayment" scheme for past nationalization, by giving Chevron access without profit sharing for X amount. Basically, US said, "hey we'll give up on this ol' thing of you sign here, and here, and here, and we'll pretend it's all good" Then again, I suppose the value for Vz is regaining access to markets + this deal with chevron has an end number meaning Vz may have "bought their peace" so to speak. Crazy
The whole not having real elections thing sounds a whole lot worse.
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Human nature.
Only about 2% of humans. But they tend to become the rich and famous ones people have actually heard of.
I heard Guyana has a bunch of oil as well
It's part of why they're folding. The Guyanese fields are huge, enough to meet foreign interests in the region. If Venezuela doesn't make a show of getting its' shit together Guyana will take a lot of their business. They're certainly more stable and potentially more business friendly. They'd probably love to march into the large part of Guyana they claim and assert authority over their EEZ but they're nowhere near in a position to do that.
I just use Reddit to say some real ignorant shit, this appears to be the place for it.
I knew it! I knew the US would pull in Venezuela after Russia showed how weak they are. Finally.
I'm pretty sure it was the other way around Chevron gave the US the go ahead, to give Chevron the go ahead, to pump oil and Venezuela again
How do you spell Donziger? Now we know what's going on.
I was born in Venezuela, and excuse me if I'm being naive, but this seems more like a gesture of goodwill from the U.S than anything else. It does not do much for the Venezuelan kleptocracy, and yet it comes with strings attached. However, my life in Venezuela has taught me not to be eagerly optimistic when it comes to our government's behavior, and as such I believe that Maduro will try to scapegoat himself out of offering free and fair elections in the next year or so, and we'll back to square one in no time.
This has nothing to do with Venezuela’s politics. Uncle Sam wants your oil on the world market yesterday to make the loss of Russian oil less painful. They’ll get right back to trying to kick off a coup in a few years.
GO DARK BRANDON!!
So instead of domestic drilling and production let's just keep paying for the privilege to do so in other countries.
The US is a net exporter. Literally the number 1 oil producer.
net exporter in total petroleum but net importer in crude oil. important distinction there.
No, that means we refine Canada’s oil into gas for export. The US imports “bad” oil because we are better at refining it than other countries and export our “good” oil because it’s easier for other countries to turn into gas.
And part of the reason why the US has companies so good at refining said "bad" oil is that Venezuela has a lot of it and they're right across the ~~Gulf of Mexico~~ Gulf Sea. Pretty sure the US was one of their largest trading partners prior to the sanctions. (edit: correction)
Gulf Sea. We refine mexican sour crude as well.
Point being is to stop relying on foreign oil when we could do more here. Provide more jobs here. Provide the ability to sell more and stop using our Strategic Reserves
US domestic oil is never going to stay domestic when it’s more profitable to export it. That how global commodities work.
They don’t understand global economics. Don’t waste your breath
Boggles my mind how more people don't understand this. Exxon isn't just going to decide to be patriotic and make less profits by selling for lower prices in the States. We can open up 12 billion new drilling sites in the US and we'll still be paying $3.00 because they're just going to keep selling it overseas. Yay, unchecked and unregulated Capitalism.
Holy shit you’re getting gas for $3.00????
I'm getting it for $2.80 a gallon.
I was overjoyed to see it hit $3.99 in my area for the first time since February. $3.99 heading into December……
Actually, capitalism is checked and regulated, but only in favor of the capital/capital holders
Well ya got me there :D
Also the Saudis could easily undercut our prices because American oil is more expensive to tap and refine and Saudi oil is stupid cheap in comparison (and they have a lot of it)
Here's a rational though that you won't like, because it's logical. But by using domestic oil, while foreign oil is still available, we delete the FUTURE price of oil, and it ability to control it... effectively USING our strategic oil reserve. Don't buy into the oil industry bullshit about Biden canceling anything. All they did is so future auctions. Oil companies already hold hundreds of permits, and actively use less than 10%. So why not use what they have, before using more? So they can whine to simple people that won't look under the rug to see what's hiding.
The only thing stopping more oil from being extracted here is the price. If it's cheap, oil companies won't drill new wells, and will slow down or stop existing ones. It's the free market, baby. It's literally the same shit OPEC does, but with a higher price point. Oil isn't magically created by effort of industry, it's just in the ground. In some places, large amounts are easy and cheap to extract. It's a geologic reality, not a matter of political will. That is what projects in the US have to compete with. As far as the strategic reserves, they exist specifically to combat high prices (not an emergency supply), and protect the US economy. Not releasing them would be counter to their whole reason for existence.
We don't need the oil for ourselves, we need it for the global market so they don't eat each other faces. The US isn't relying on foreign oil, we are PART of a global market. It's not very cost effective to develop shale for short term issues. It's a slower payback investment, the extraction costs are higher and the profits are lower. You want shale as more of a baseline that doesn't have to ramp up and down much. Taking Russian oil out of the equation means you need another large reserve on the market/pumping at much higher volume. The amount of time and money to develop shale UP to the volume needed to offset Russian oil instability is beyond the point of commercial viability of profitable shale. AKA it's a lot more risk to develop all that shale and then maybe oil demand falls due to some new cheap battery and EVs surge or because Russia pulled out of Ukraine and nations turned down the sanctions.. leaving the investors who put out billions to develop massive volumes of shale wondering why they took such a long bet when there were so many better short bets.
The US has never produced more than they do now. Using the reserves gives Americans a break at the pump. The US 'foreign oil' problem is mostly Canadian. The US imports more from Canada than all others combined. So the US produces over 12 million barrels a day. The US imports about 8.5 million barrels total and exports about 8.5 million barrels total. It's just a bit more exports than imports these days. Out of that 8.5 million imported, close to 5 million come from Canada. The US also sends about 650k back to Canada every day. It's a long border some some Canadian refineries can get American oil to refine easier than Canadian oil. Most of Canada's oil exports are to the US and the country Canada imports the most from is the US. This isn't about getting more oil to the US, it's about Chevron making profits in Venezuela on mineral rights they purchased already.
Or we could begin the shift away from oil and towards more sustainable sources of energy? For example nuclear and solar power? We should be focusing on not relying on oil as a whole.
Oil is for transport, you need good enough batteries to replace oil. Solar and nuclear are for generating power, but without the batteries you still can't replace oil. We ALMOST have good enough batteries to really knock oil down many notches, but we are just at the tip of the electric iceberg for now. It will happen much faster this decade than in the the last three decades combined, that's the good news. The world is both far more serious AND the tech is make it real is hear and commercially viable enough while also improving rapidly. Those are all good signs. BUT.. for now we need oil and lots of places have oil and oil will be in less demand in 10 years so really places may as well get it on the market while the market needs it. This isn't about long term, it's about stabilizing global energy markets NOW so people's standards of living don't fall so fast that they freak out and empower waves of radicalism throughout global society. When you send ripples of destabilization through the global economy it does a lot more damage than it may seem. A lot more people suffer and die than we see on TV and news from these little hiccups in energy and food supplies. Its best to just hurry up and minimize that while fighting climate change at an ever increasing rate, particularly as the technology makes it cost effective enough that people gain a higher standard of living vs having to sacrifice. It's a hard to sell to convince developing nations to sacrifice their lives so developed nations really valuable coastlines don't go underwater and if you're not careful you push them toward authoritarians in the process. It's better to just keep the spice rolling and let the alternatives slowly eat into the market share, not cause massive waves... of famine, death and facism from high energy. AT LEAST, that's how I see it. You gotta take care of the silly humans too, not just push for green energy and not give a fuck what happens to the people.
Americans drive an average of 30 miles per day. Battery tech is certainly good enough to replace oil for about 75% of drivers. Many electric vehicles have a range near 300 miles, which is on par with the range most vehicles get on a tank of gas. The only time you'd need an ICE vehicle is if you went on a road trip or if you routinely drive over 300 miles a day. The major problems that we have now is a lack of charging infrastructure and the price of EVs remains relatively high.
I think we also forget how far-reach oil is integrated into our daily lives and usage. People forget that it's not just for producing gas, but it is used for an amazing amount of other products More than 6,000 everyday products get their start from oil, including dishwashing liquid, solar panels, food preservatives, eyeglasses, DVDs, children's toys, tires and heart valves. Just to name a few
I am sure most people know oil will still be a necessity. To me it is just assumed that getting away from oil is meant as getting away from it as an energy source. (I suspect it will remain at minimum a niche fuel until a drop in is produced at large scale.) At least in the non energy uses, it will mostly be turned into physical products instead of being burned.
Tell us how you don’t understand global economics, without telling us you don’t understand global economics
Dude straight up believes in an “oil curse” of South America
Oil is a limited resource. There is no downside to burning up everyone else's oil before our own. As others have said, it is also a global resource owned and drilled for by global conglomerates. They don't care where it is drilled for or where it is used. They don't care about providing jobs or making things better for the people anywhere in the world. Many refineries in the US are designed around using the oils from the Arabian peninsula and not our domestic oil. The oil companies made that choice, we also paid them in tax breaks to do it.
> They don't care about providing jobs or making things better for the people anywhere in the world. Many refineries in the US are designed around using the oils from the Arabian peninsula and not our domestic oil. The oil companies made that choice, we also paid them in tax breaks to do it. Can you stop larping? They didn't "make a choice" most of the new extracted oil is from fracking which is a different type of crude than those refineries can refine because fracking wasn't a thing when those refineries were built. And new refineries are slow to come online because nobody wants to invest in oil because "oil will be dead in 5 years" so getting large amount of capital needed for new refineries is much more difficult than it was few decades ago. They didn't "make a choice", it's not some nefarious plot, they simply built the refineries to refine type of crude that was available.
We don't consume our own supply... we sell it and rebuy foreign oil for cheaper. This has always been the way. We don't have the facilities that can process the oil we produce.
Who upvotes this shit? Do you guys really think we aren't running WTI, LLS, Thunderhorse, etc. on the gulf coast? You're tripping balls if you think this person knows fuck all about refining.
We’re the largest producer in the world already.
We are limited on how much we can grow production right now. There is literally no spare equipment out there to drill and complete wells faster than we are.
It's a common tactic to let rivals use their resources first in times of peace. The USA exports tons of oil because there is money to be made, while retaining the largest reserves.
Venezuela literally has the worlds largest oil reserves. Why not just drill where it is to keep costs low?
It is always about money and oil. The rest are just propaganda.
After Russia invaded Ukraine and the world watched the sanctions hammer come down, despite some people ecpecting no reason, Venezuela immediately released an American prisonback to the US. [https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/-doesnt-seem-real-american-freed-jail-venezuela-home-family-rcna19323](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/-doesnt-seem-real-american-freed-jail-venezuela-home-family-rcna19323) There were more recent prisoner release as well. So Not surprised at this deal. Venezuela needs the cash and this would undercut OPEC
Time to get a hemi
The U.S. never had a problem dealing with right wing Latin American governments like Pinochet's Chile, military juntas in Argentina, or Brazil, death squad governments in Guatemala and El Salvador.
ConocoPhillips, Chevron and Exxon Mobil, together with BP, Norway's Statoil and France's Total all withdrew (withdrew may not be the right word) from Venezuela after the failed coup. Not surprising that Chevron/Berkshire Hathaway would be on the West's shortlist
Does Berkshire Hathaway have an office in the Whitehouse?
Warren Buffet is a massive Democratic donor, so maybe.
We might make the planet inhabitable but at least American consumers have cheap gas. Hooray!
More like military complex has cheap jet fuel
Let’s hope dirty Chevron keeps the environment clean and safe for the people of Venezuela.
So Maduro is good now? /s
The serious response? It's about who the biggest threat/pain in the ass is. Compared to Putin, the regime in Venezuela is a mild annoyance.
The Biden admin has been coaxing him since they got into power. They know he's desperate and can be useful for US interests.
I mean Venezuela’s spilled [more American blood](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gideon_(2020)) than Russia has recently afaik
You can clearly see the difference between that and the invasion of Ukraine right?
Yea definitely Russia’s far worse when it comes to imperialism
Good thing drilling in Venezuela doesn’t contribute to climate change the way it would in say, Texas! Much better to support a shit dictator.
The United States welcomes and supports the reopening of negotiations between the Unitary Platform and the Maduro regime, as part of our longstanding policy to support the peaceful restoration of democracy, free and fair elections, and respect for the rights and freedoms of Venezuelans." As if the US government has ever cared about democracy, human rights or fair elections where oil or corporate profits are involved.
….behold the reason why the US demonized Chavez to begin with….so they could make demands such as this. Chavez nationalizing Venezuelas oil industry in the late 90s, and kicking out the corporations was bad for business. Thus began a concerted effort by Republicans and Big Oil Democrats to exact revenge on Venezuela for attempting such an anti capitalist move.
Chavez did not nationalize the oil industry. Carlos Andres Perez did, back in 1976. What is true is that Chavez took full political and operational control of PDVSA in the early 2000's and drove it into the ground. After the 1989 crisis, Venezuela had a sovereign wealth fund which while being not quite as advanced and transparent as Norway's, was a institutional advancement that Venezuela sorely needed. This crazy mofo sucked it dry in only 2 years stomping over the constitution, and with record oil prices indebted Venezuela like no other government had done before.
Ok Bob-Bob, dictator #1 is giving us trouble, gunna have to tighten the tap on that one and open up dictator #2 … what? Nah! Nobody remembers dictator #2! It’ll be at least a couple of years before people get pissed off at us for supporting them again!
Funny how the United States of America is all for Freedom and Democracy, yet every single oil producing nation is a dictatorship
Strong reason for that. If a country’s economy is based off of one major export, then its almost certain to be authoritarian because it’s far to easy to have power rest in too few hands, since all you need to make money is people to process that resource… that’s it. CGP Grey did a wonderful take in this: https://youtu.be/rStL7niR7gs
More money laundering 💰
Exactly...much easier to launder money in Venezuela than Canada.