Free Republic

Energy: Oil is rising sharply from two disasters in the Caribbean region — one, a fierce storm, and the other a massive blast at the world's second-largest refinery in Hugo Chavez's Venezuela. Only one was perfectly preventable. When the strongman cracked the whip on Venezuela's oil industry in 2003, firing 20,000 experienced oil managers from state-owned Petroleo de Venezuela (PDVSA) to break a strike he admitted he had provoked, he insisted that merit didn't matter anymore, only political loyalty. "There will be no more meritocracy," he told his cheering red-shirts. That philosophy has been laid out in all its glory...

A tank containing crude oil or asphalt exploded at a large refinery in Wisconsin on Thursday, injuring several people and causing a blast that one worker described as sounding like a sonic boom. No fatalities have been reported, but at least five people have been taken to hospitals in Duluth, Minnesota, following the explosion at the Husky Energy oil refinery at about 10 a.m., Superior Fire Chief Steve Panger told The Associated Press. Panger didn't have details about the extent of their injuries. Others were walking wounded.

A huge explosion rocked Venezuela's biggest oil refinery early Saturday, killing at least 24 people and injuring more than 80 others in the deadliest disaster in memory for the country's key oil industry. Balls of fire rose over the Amuay refinery, one of the largest in the world, in video posted on the Internet by people who were nearby at the time.