RE >> Oil supplies from OPEC-member Venezuela -- which normally supplies around 13 percent of U.S. gasoline imports -- have been shut off since Dec 2 by an open-ended national protest against leftist president Hugo Chavez
CIA is likely behind and instigating the strike..
Chavez is very popular in Venezuela so it don't figure,
unless he is playing lame duck & shutting down
his own production to hike prices.
Either way it's rigged.
---------
I haven't figured out the end game yet,
but it looks like someone in the Bush administration
wants high oil prices.
Jim
Are you surprised about the movement of oil, the US dollar, gold and the stock market? Sometimes the movements seem illogical.
To add to your theory of BUsh wanting higher oil prices:
cnn.com
Republican urges release of stockpiled oil
WASHINGTON (Reuters) --With oil prices soaring to a two-year high on Iraq war fears and dwindling Venezuela supplies, a senior House Republican asked the Bush administration Monday to release crude oil from the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
Two large U.S. refineries will run out of crude oil supplies by the end of the month unless some stockpiled crude was released to make up for the lack of Venezuelan supplies, Louisiana Rep. Billy Tauzin said in a letter to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham.
Tauzin, who represents a state with several oil refineries, is chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
"I respectfully request that careful consideration be made as to the economic consequences caused by the lack of crude oil supply from Venezuela," Tauzin said in the letter.
Venezuela, a major supplier of oil to the United States, has seen its production fall from about 3 million barrels per day (bpd) to less than 300,000 bpd since a national general strike began on December 2 to protest President Hugo Chavez.
U.S. crude oil futures traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange soared on Monday by more than $1.50 per barrel on nervousness about a possible American military strike on Iraq.
Crude oil futures traded as high as $31.95 a barrel -- the highest since January 2001 -- on Iraq war fears plus the extended stoppage of Venezuelan crude oil.
A U.S. military unmanned spy plane was fired on by an Iraqi aircraft in the southern no-fly zone of Iraq on Monday. Last week, President Bush canceled a trip to Africa amid the continuing U.S. military buildup that could have more than 100,000 troops in the Middle East in weeks.
White House watching
The White House said Monday it was monitoring the nation's oil supply situation, but declined further comment on Tauzin's request.
A spokesman for Tauzin said the congressman was working closely with the administration on oil supply issues.
"The situation is acute," Tauzin said in his letter, adding that "at least two" refineries located in the U.S. Gulf will run out of crude oil by the end of the month.
Both refineries are owned by Citgo, the marketing and refining arm of Venezuela's state oil firm PDVSA, a spokesman for Tauzin said.
Together, the two refineries supply about 10 percent of U.S. gasoline and refined products, which qualifies as a supply shortage of significant scope required by federal law for tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, Tauzin said in his letter to the Bush administration.
One refinery is located in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and the other in Corpus Christi, Texas, Tauzin's spokesman said.
U.S. refineries that depend on easy access to Venezuelan crude oil have depleted their stocks and been scrambling to find supplies since the national strike began.
For example, Lyondell-Citgo and ConocoPhillips cut a combined 100,000 bpd of output at their refineries in Texas last week due to a lack of Venezuelan crude.
Department of energy silent
The U.S. Energy Department had no immediate comment on Tauzin's request, a spokesman said.
The department previously said it did not plan to loan stockpiled oil to firms that may have problems getting Venezuelan crude to supply their refineries.
Responding directly to the Venezuela troubles, the department has approved requests from energy firms to delay delivering a total of 7.4 million barrels of crude to the emergency stockpile.
Venezuela, a member of OPEC, is the fourth-biggest U.S. oil supplier.
The emergency stockpile, created by Congress in the mid-1970s after the Arab oil embargo, currently holds 599 million barrels of crude in underground salt caverns in Louisiana and Texas.
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve has been tapped only a handful of times for sales of crude oil.
In 1985, the Energy Department made a test sale of 1.1 million barrels, followed by the sale of 21 million barrels during the 1990/91 U.S. invasion of Kuwait. The last sale was made in 1996/97, when 28 million barrels were sold in a non-emergency action by Congress to raise revenues to help balance the federal budget.
It takes about 15 days to move the stored oil to the market after a presidential order to release supplies.
cnn.com
Rascal@ Cantfigureitout.com |
