And how would that help int this case? We would still have a surplus of sweet crude and a lack of refineries.
End the export law and use our surplus oil to end what’s left of OPEC’s control.
We don't have an oil surplus. Every barrel of oil we export has to be replaced by a barrel of import.
The US refineries produce more than we use in the US. We do not have a lack of refineries. We have surplus capacity.
Would you rather import heavy crude from Venezuela and support a Russian partner which is a socialist regime or would you rather import from a neighbor, Canada, which to my knowledge does not support terrorism nor invade other countries?
Hurting Venezuela hurts Russia since they’ll have to prop up another regime. Now that you know refineries are designed to process specific types of crude, where will Venezuela sell their heavy crude once we, their biggest customer in the past, stop buying it? The idea is to bleed Russia while restricting their cash flow by killing high world oil prices.
FWIW, the Crimea will suck the better part of a billion dollars from Russia to fund their government and programs. The overall idea is to force Russia to embrace the suck and thereby end the possibility of their modernizing the military and restrict funds for other adventures.
There’s a reason the Saudis panicked over fracking. If we dump that oil on the market they and every other oil producer that relies on oil sales, including Russia, for funding their government, is totally and royally screwed.
The days of $100/bbl oil will be over.