Venezuelan President Threatens U.S. With an Oil Embargo

All Headline News ^ | 8/15/2005 | Matthew Borghese

[conservativewasp]

Viva la revolution. It's his only means to retain power. It has worked for Castro for decades.

[moose2004]

He's blowing socialist smoke. Venezuela does not want to suffer under the same trade embargo as Chavez's buddy Castro has for 40+ years. Not gonna happen.

[carl in alaska]

Bingo, it doesn't make any difference if Vezuela stops shipping to us. It's Venezuela's total production that matters. All Chavez will do here is raise his shipping costs by selling to Europe and Japan instead of to America.

[Just mythoughts]

Somebody is directing this threat, might it come from the homeland of where the next G8 Summit is to be held?

If my memory serves me correctly Putin is host next year and he has said the summit will be about "energy".

[SpinyNorman]

Chavez is working hard to get China's protection..who needs oil - China , Chavez has it and wants to hurt the USA, only thing the nutjob owns the citgo gas stations in USA ..maybe he hates us enough to loose money here - while selling his oil at discount to China..watch this one folks if he does stop oil to USA..well things get real bad real quick"

I believe that Tibet was the recipient of China's goodwill once too. Look how that worked out. North Korea and South Korea are perfect examples of what goodwill from China and the U.S. (respectively) ultimately leads to.

[cpdiii]

The only way he can have any effect is to cut production which he can not as Venezuela is in economic trouble. If he sells less oil to the United States that will just make oil from other markets available. The reason Venezuela sells most of its oil to the United States is it is closer to us than the Mid East. Venezuela can obtain more for its oil with less transportation costs added to the costs.

[Mister Baredog]

Enjoy your upcoming famine, Hugo.

I'm sure his buddy Fidel will send him all the cigars he needs though, enuf to to make a certain ex-prez jealous.

[lugsoul]

Declining to sell to the US something that they own, that we want, is tantamount to an attack?

I shudder to think of the foreign policy implications of that viewpoint. What next? Using the military to set our desired purchase prices?

[chilepepper]

China cannot project its power as far as venezuela, at least, not yet! the flip side is that the US *can* and *does* project its power to taiwan...

[ConsentofGoverned]

" believe that Tibet was the recipient of China's goodwill once too. Look how that worked out. North Korea and South Korea are perfect examples of what goodwill from China and the U.S. (respectively) ultimately leads to."

Yep but we are taking about the GUY who thinks he is the next Leader of S America aka Bolivar or Che..and China needs oil - he may play the Chinese against us and well I am not too confident that GW Bush or the Pentagon have the will to do another military intervention..2 wars in 2 terms and GW is not likely to do another unless we are again attacked like 9/11, Chavez is nuts but also sees that USA is hamstrung by the MSM and Demorat leftist.

[Willie Green]

There is one world price for oil. Chavez can ship wherever he wants; we'll buy from the international markets, and tankers will move from port to port. Prices will remain the same.

Since when do oil prices "remain the same"???

All they ever really do is go up, and up, and up...

[redgolum]

Hugo and Iran are talking about an embargo. Now that China and India have a demand for oil, it won't hurt their profits as much.

Hang on, this is going to get ugly.

[Dallas59]

Where's Jimmuh Carter????

[mysterio]

Just on that information, the oil speculators can drive the price up to $80 dollars a barrel. $83 will be almost a relief. Because then those a@!holes won't be able to say, "Oil is a bargain, because for a week in 1981 it was more expensive if adjusted for inflation!"

[M. Espinola]

Remember the higher energy prices climb the better Chavez and his OPEC pals love it.

Futures for September's Unleaded Gas just hit $2.00.50, UP 0.0429

[ConsentofGoverned]

"Oil is a bargain, because for a week in 1981 it was more expensive if adjusted for inflation!"""

It is a bargain all time high thanks to J Carter is near $90 so still below 70's price..no gas lines now, and from what I can see the roads are loaded with one person per car..we can afford these prices ..when we see traffic drop off and most cars with two or more people then that will be the price of gas which starts to hurt my bet gas will have to be north of $4.00 to greatly impact economy get this figure by ave miles driven 11,000/yr cost ave gal /mil 20 miles = 550 gal per yr or $2200/yr we are now spending 550 x $2.5 gal or $1375 = $825 more per year or
$69 more per month..not so bad now is it as most of us buy more than $69 worth of extra luxury items per month..heck sneakers costing $100 is normal now days.

[kittymyrib]

And when the Venezulan military had him in their cross-hairs, they were stupid enough to listen to the Catholic bishop vouch for Chavez's blubbering promises that he would reform his government. The minute they let him go, he took revenge on everyone who had crossed him. They have only themselves to blame that he's still breathing valuable oxygen that a good rat could use.

[RAY]

A good way to start is with hybrid vehicles. And using flywheels, electric motors, sterling engines, hydrogen technologies and all the other types of technologies put on the shelf by the government to support the oil companies.

There are some possibilities in your above list and I offer the below comments:

However, as a mechanical engineer with over 40 years experience in industrial and commercial power generation, employing every conceivable method to improve thermal efficiency, etc. - I'm curious, relative to your above list (you can also throw in wind power), it seems if you develop all of the above mentioned technologies, it will amount to a mule fart in a tornado compared to our needs.

Most power conversion systems can extract, for useful work, only 25% to the 50% plus range (combined cycle power plants) of the fuel energy input. There is typically, some 35% waste heat exhausted to the atmosphere and the other is lost as friction, etc. Hence, one of the largest gains could be more conversion of the wasted heat (low grade energy). Of course, improvements in our transportation energy consumption would greatly help

Yes we need sources of energy that will meet our society’s needs, but economics for the most part, in this country, drives the development of power sources. In a free society, government can’t keep things on the shelf if industry sees a way to make $$$$! You will find that the Federal Government has funded or helped fund a number of studies and pilot plants exploring the use of other power cycles towards recovery and use of waste heat from conventional power cycles.

The power industry can presently do several things to adjust, such as when the cost of oil and natural gas goes up, the power industry switches to coal and back to gas/oil when their prices reduce. Additionally, one of the problems with the cost of transportation fuels is the lack of refinery capacity compounded by the many different area fuel formulations they are required to produce. For example, a refinery in one area can not make up the short fall in another area because of local formulation regulations.

The conversion of domestic oil bearing shell and further development of nuclear energy will be the likely solution. In the future, one may be driving an electrical car that pulls up to charging station, supplied by a nuclear plant. Done right, a nuclear power station can produce power at a relatively low cost.

Short of the above, and possibly in any event, a great change in our infrastructure and changes in our community arrangements may evolve. Presently, we all get up in the morning and travel to distant offices or factories. The change may have to be a clustering of work place and living areas, as well virtual offices, where the connection to your fellow workers and resources is electronic – to result in less automobile travel

[Mike Darancette]

Chavez oil goes somewhere else, oil from somewhere else goes here. Crude oil is a commodity.

But no oil goes to CITGO.

[monday]

"During a recent speech in Caracas, President Chavez denounced the "aggressive" actions of the U.S. government against the South American country, threatening that Venezuelan oil "instead of going to the United States, could go elsewhere."


hmmm.. wonder what all those 14,000 Venezuelan owned CITGO gas stations in the US are going to sell? I almost wish he would cut off oil to the US. It would end up costing Venezuela so much more than it would cost the US. Chavez's stupidity is awesome in it stupendous monumentality. No greater ignorance has ever existed. Someone needs to kill that stupid F-er before he starves his country to death.