[Kenny Bunk]

And witnessing Chavez swimming in the oil he can't sell.

".....While a number of domestic refineries use Venezuelan crude oil, 11 accounted for 80 percent of Venezuelan crude oil used in the United States and the U.S. Virgin Islands ...."

Although it would hurt some oil companies temporarily, we can do very well without Venezuelan Crude, which is pretty crude indeed, requiring highly specialized refineries. After the 11 US refineries which handle Venezuelan Crude are switched to other feedstocks, which takes a while, Chávez would really be up a bit of a creek, because in order to use the stuff, other refinery facilities would have to be found and adapted, which also takes a while.

Oilco economic hossheet aside, Venezuela needs us one hell of a lot more than we need them.

[StJacques]

". . . After the 11 US refineries which handle Venezuelan Crude are switched to other feedstocks, which takes a while, Chávez would really be up a bit of a creek, because in order to use the stuff, other refinery facilities would have to be found and adapted . . ."

The "adapted" part is more important to Venezuela than one might normally think because most Venezuelan crude has a high sulfur content, which requires special adaptation on the part of refiners to extract. And it's not some little adjustment either. You are talking about building what amounts to almost a "mini-refinery" just to remove the sulfur. This is a lot different from Middle East oil, which every refiner wants to get his hands on.

[Alia]

Maybe you know: but I thought I'd heard a while back that the only other country which has the rigs to process Venezuela's crude (besides the US)... was Iran? I know there's one other country, and Iran keeps coming to mind.

Your points are right.