For years, the mantra of President Donald Trump and his supporters has been "drill, baby, drill" when it comes to U.S. oil production. But there's no need to drill for the latest motherlode of oil coming to the U.S. Chevron is now importing 250,000 barrels per day of crude oil from Venezuela, to be refined right here in America. This is a direct result of the U.S.-led ouster of longtime Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro earlier this year, which led to cooperation between the new Venezuelan leadership and the U.S. That cooperation includes the U.S. taking control of Venezuela's rich oil reserves, which had been shut off to American companies for decades under Maduro.
For American oil companies, this marks a return to the Venezuelan market which was thriving at one time prior to Maduro's regime. "A lot of the refineries here on the Gulf Coast were optimized for Venezuelan crude, so it's kind of a welcome sign that Venezuelan crude is flowing back to the United States, controlled by a U.S. company," says David Holt, president of the Consumer Energy Alliance. "You know, it's a signal that Venezuela is open for business."
So far, Chevron is the only company capable of extracting crude oil from Venezuela. But the U.S. has granted licenses for other companies to purchase oil directly from Venezuela, meaning more Venezuelan crude should be coming stateside soon.
What it means for consumers is lower gas prices in the long-term, notwithstanding the current conflict in the Middle East. A Chevron spokesman told the BBC that the Iran war is "masking" any gains from Venezuelan oil right now, but that it will translate to lower prices "when things get back to normal."
Holt sees it the same way. "Remember, prices today for gasoline and diesel are still lower than they were three or four years ago under the previous administration," he tells KTRH. "And I agree with Chevron's optimism, that prices could go down even more as we import more crude oil from Venezuela and get the spigots going."
Photo: Moment RF