Maduro urges calm as Venezuelans jam stores again

[MADem]

36. We "buy" their oil to refine it and send it on, to a very great extent.

We also "import" and then refine and return it to VZ as gasoline. Their oil is heavy and sour. The Chinese can refine it in some of their refineries, but that's a long way to ship crap before it can be turned into treasure.

Oil prices are coming down, too--the gouging bastards aren't passing all of the savings on to their customers, but they are. Also, there are more options these days for the winter heating season, "thanks" to fracking and other extraction methods for natural gas.

Any time there is a disruption in any energy sector, it most certainly "matters," but it might not matter as much as it once did--VZ's production is WAY down from years past, mainly because they haven't been maintaining their equipment and can't get as much of the crap outta the ground, and they've also had a number of industrial accidents due to lack of maintenance as well.

They are doing more business with China, and China doesn't play--they can't stiff-arm those guys, nationalize their stuff, not pay what they owe, and get away with it. They need to get correct and fix the problems with this sector, it's not like they can diversify and do other things--their country has one big source of income, and that's oil. They're so unstable and violent they can't even count on tourism--who wants to get robbed on holiday, after all?