President Donald Trump says his administration has entered a sweeping agreement with Venezuela that, if realized, could give the U.S. access to vast amounts of the South American country’s untapped oil reserves, at cost.
  • KulunkelBoom@lemmus.orgEnglish
    19·
    6 days ago

    So he’s stealing 65 billion barrels of oil from Venezuela. And he’s probably threatening them with war and death if they don’t “sign on”.

    • IronBird@lemmy.world
      101·
      6 days ago

      not really, this “deal” covers fields that are untapped or in heavy disrepair. will take years of infrastructure buildoit to exploit and it’s unlikely any serious capital will be rushing to do that, as historically when the US has done this to venezuela…after the admin switches hands they just nationalize that infrastructure and go back to business as usual.

      this is just venezuela leadership telling trump and co. “sure…whatever, now leave us alone” in the hopes they’ll fuck off get distracted by something else until being replaced by a sane actor shortly.

      same as every other deal of supposed investment with the US, UK/South Korea etc. agree to some stupid figure in a half-assed promise for trump and co. to parade on headlines. then they forget you exist and fuck off

  • febra@lemmy.world
    5·
    5 days ago

    So when I rob someone at gunpoint I can just say they have entered a deal with me to give me their stuff and maybe I’ll throw them back a penny.

  • njm1314@lemmy.world
    15·
    7 days ago

    Considering how little we teach the Banana Republic era in schools I wonder how few Americans recognize what’s going on here. How many of them know about the American conquest of Haiti or the Dominican Republic or any of the other dozen countries America conquered and pillaged.

  • UnLocoPoco@lemmy.world
    11·
    6 days ago

    Kidnapping a country’s leader and then capturing the oil refineries and oil fields is NOT the definition of a “deal” 🙂

  • Hello_there@fedia.io
    181·
    7 days ago

    This seems like a much bigger deal than the news has portrayed. It seems like Trump feels like he can’t do fun things (bomb Iran) because of the oil stockpile. So he is doing anything he can to try to show markets that he has oil so he can get back to doing fun.

    Consumption of US is 19.4 million barrels a day.
    https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/united-states/oil-consumption So 65 billion seems like a lot.

    However, “The bulk of the country’s petroleum is made up of heavy, sour crude oil—a dark, gloopy, acidic substance that is both high in sulfur and relatively difficult to recover. This type of crude oil is very useful in asphalt production, but it needs to undergo a longer refining process to be made into more lucrative products, such as gasoline and other fuels, compared with lighter crude oil” https://www.britannica.com/science/How-Much-Oil-Does-Venezuela-Have-and-How-Much-Is-Accessible

    If our processes are set up to process one type of oil, can we even switch to another type? How many refineries can do it? How much is wasted in the process and what is the rate? This seems like everything trump does: effective on a first glance but the moment you start thinking or asking questions it falls apart

  • mossberg590@lemmy.world
    12·
    6 days ago

    Venezuela has twice nationalized the oil infrastructure, 1976 and 1999. Meaning they kicked out the foreign companies that invested and built infrastructure. This is why Trump couldn’t find any companies willing to do it a third time. So now it seems the US is gaurantieeng the security with this “lease”. This is a scary prospect all the way around.