PetroChina taps into Chavez's rage at U.S.

A little-noticed piece of news: A few weeks ago, Venezuela announced an agreement with PetroChina to build a large refinery in Guangdong province capable of refining Venezuela's unique heavy oil. At first glance that looks like very bad news for the United States.

Right now, Venezuela refines nearly all of its oil in the United States, about 1.2 million barrels a day, and then sells it here. What would happen if, one day down the road, Venezuela simply cut off the supply? At the very least, that would cause severe market disruptions, leading to a large jump in the price of gas.

That's the stated aim of Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president.

[what need for more domestic oil resources?]

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