OT: Oil companies

[spewey at comcast.net (Spewey)]

1 Fighting Chavez with your wallet is pointless.  Are you really afraid 
that we couldn't whoop his ass with one hand tied behind Iraq even if he 
has 1 million AK-47s?  Or are we losing in Iraq because the population 
is armed?  We already tried to sponsor two coups and it only made him 
stronger.  Boycotting Citgo hurts good ol' Americans more than 
Venezuelans and in no way affects the price of gas even if they 
completely disappear.

2 Sour crude does not make high sulfur diesel, it just needs to be 
refined in a different way.  A way that we will need more of once the 
light sweet starts running low as it is right now.  Refining capacity is 
critical to keeping gas prices down.  Any hit on the Gulf Coast proves 
that.  An American advocating the closure of Citgo refineries or sour 
crude refineries is cutting off his nose to spite his gas tank.  A 
refinery needs to be in a useful place (oil in, pipeline out) and who 
owns it matters little.

3 Venezuela's heavy crude is so heavy it's almost impossible to suck out 
of the ground.  If you count the unsuckable as reserves, they have way 
more oil than anyone.  Regular heavy crude is something else and worth 
less everywhere because it makes less gas.  Lots of places have heavy or 
sour crude besides Venezuela.

4 The more expensive oil you buy from abroad, the more money they get. 
Johnny Dubai gets tired of gold chains and wants our ports, some F-16s, 
or what the hey, how about Boeing?  All these regimes are getting rich 
not because you buy gas at a particular station but simply because you 
buy gas.  Johnny Jihad has noticed that this is your achilles heel no 
matter what kind of towel, turban, or sombrero he wears.

5 For a smart guy you are as nutty as Chavez sometimes.  You are talking 
about a global commodity no matter how much you stomp your feet about 
his company.

***

"For one thing, although Citgo may be owned by Petr?leos de Venezuela, 
it is a formerly American company which is still headquartered in the 
U.S. (in Houston, Texas), employs 4,000 people, and supplies 14,000 
independent retailers with gasoline and other petroleum products ? 
Americans with no substantive connection to Venezuela who would be 
economically harmed by such an action. And, of course, as long as the 
global demand for oil exceeds supply, Citgo's products will continue to 
find buyers whether or not they're purchased by Americans."

http://www.snopes.com/politics/gasoline/citgo.asp

"A boycott of a couple of brands of gasoline won't result in lower 
overall prices. Prices at all the non-boycotted outlets would rise due 
to the temporarily limited supply and increased demand, making the 
original prices look cheap by comparison. The shunned outlets could then 
make a killing by offering gasoline at its "normal" (i.e., pre-boycott) 
price or by selling off their output to the non-boycotted companies, who 
will need the extra supply to meet demand. The only person who really 
gets hurt in this proposed scheme is the service station operator, who 
has almost no control over the price of gasoline."

http://www.snopes.com/politics/gasoline/gasout.asp

"Since supertankers cannot pass through the Panama Canal, the journey to 
Asia is long and expensive. For now, Venezuela exports only about 
300,000 barrels of oil per day to China."

http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/5/22/165318/469

"Here's the crux of the problem for gasoline consumers and oil 
companies: There's just not enough light sweet crude to meet demand. 
And, while there's plenty of heavy sour crude, a barrel of heavy sour 
crude yields about a third less gasoline than does a barrel of sweet 
light crude. That's if you can refine it to begin with..."

http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/7/18/9456/93641

"Refinery capacity figures are thousand bbl per day. Percentages are of 
the ~17mbpd total US operable refining capacity figure used in the EIA 
weekly reports."

http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2005/9/22/11010/0013