undefined | Better HN

0 pointsdataflow2mo ago0 comments

It's explicitly about oil, right?

Wikipedia [1]:

> Andrew McCabe quotes Trump as saying of Venezuela "That’s the country we should be going to war with, they have all that oil and they’re right on our back door.”

> In June 2023, Trump said at a press conference in North Carolina, "When I left, Venezuela was about to collapse. We would have taken over it, we would have kept all that oil."

PBS [2]:

> "We want it back," he added. "They took our oil rights — we had a lot of oil there. As you know they threw our companies out, and we want it back."

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposed_United_States_invasio...

[2] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-we-want-it-back-...

0 comments

HDThoreaun2mo ago

Venezuelan oil is kind of crappy. I would say the two biggest reasons for this are 1. Trump wanting migrants from Venezuela to stop and 2. Ending Venezuelan support for Cuba. Oil is definitely one of the reasons though.

trickyager2mo ago

Venezuelan oil is very heavy, but the US oil industry is literally designed to process this type. The US exports their sweet crude elsewhere because they can't process it.

abigail952mo ago

How much of that do you think is idle?

gbnwl2mo ago

It is heavy crude but it's what our refineries are set up to use. There was a very informative news report on this recently posted to youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pgwny1BiCYk

Apparently shale oil mostly comes out as light, so our own production doesn't feed our refineries and we've increasingly taken to importing heavy crude.

abigail952mo ago

Where are you people getting your information that the USA somehow has idle heavy oil processing despite record production levels?

2 more replies

dataflowOP2mo ago

Maybe worth mentioning I posted this before seeing the news about Maduro being captured. No idea whether/how that might change the calculus.

dataflowOP2mo ago

Yup it's the oil.

https://www.npr.org/2026/01/03/g-s1-104346/trump-venezuela-m...

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 pointsdataflow2mo ago0 comments

It's explicitly about oil, right?

Wikipedia [1]:

> Andrew McCabe quotes Trump as saying of Venezuela "That’s the country we should be going to war with, they have all that oil and they’re right on our back door.”

> In June 2023, Trump said at a press conference in North Carolina, "When I left, Venezuela was about to collapse. We would have taken over it, we would have kept all that oil."

PBS [2]:

> "We want it back," he added. "They took our oil rights — we had a lot of oil there. As you know they threw our companies out, and we want it back."

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposed_United_States_invasio...

[2] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-we-want-it-back-...

0 comments

HDThoreaun2mo ago

trickyager2mo ago

Venezuelan oil is very heavy, but the US oil industry is literally designed to process this type. The US exports their sweet crude elsewhere because they can't process it.

abigail952mo ago

How much of that do you think is idle?

gbnwl2mo ago

It is heavy crude but it's what our refineries are set up to use. There was a very informative news report on this recently posted to youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pgwny1BiCYk

Apparently shale oil mostly comes out as light, so our own production doesn't feed our refineries and we've increasingly taken to importing heavy crude.

abigail952mo ago

Where are you people getting your information that the USA somehow has idle heavy oil processing despite record production levels?

2 more replies

dataflowOP2mo ago

Maybe worth mentioning I posted this before seeing the news about Maduro being captured. No idea whether/how that might change the calculus.

dataflowOP2mo ago

Yup it's the oil.

https://www.npr.org/2026/01/03/g-s1-104346/trump-venezuela-m...

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse