© Marco Bello / Reuters
CNN: Maduro warns Trump not to ban Venezuelan oil
Venezuela's president has a message for President Trump: Don't do it.
President Nicolas Maduro sharply warned Trump on Thursday not to ban Venezuelan oil from the United States. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said last week that the United States was considering a ban to pressure Maduro to adopt democratic reforms.
The oil embargo would be "one of the biggest mistakes in international politics that @realDonaldTrump would commit," Maduro tweeted Thursday after a press conference. He added: "The oil embargo is an illegal measure in light of international law, [and] an inconvenient measure in light of U.S. interests."
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Update: Venezuela Looks For Other Markets As U.S. Considers Oil Embargo (OilPrice.com).
WNU Editor: U.S. refineries that use the "heavy oil" that Venezuela produces will be hurt .... oil from Canada's oil sands that can fill this need are still limited by the lack of pipelines to ship this product, and the cost for these refineries to make changes to refine other oil products will be expensive. But the country that will be severely hit will be Venezuela. They may search for other markets to refine their oil, but those markets are refining a completely different product, and I do not see them changing their existing suppliers (and changing how they refine their oil products in their refineries) to satisfy an unstable supplier like Venezuela. In short .... unless Venezuela drops the price of their oil to a ridiculously low price, no one is going to buy their oil.
Update #2: Here is a good article from Canada on why Canadian oil producers are selling their oil to the U.S. at half the world price .... Pipeline bottlenecks push Canadian oil price to deepest discount in 4 years (CBC). This is the competitor that Venezuela must match .... or even sell at a lower price. In short .... Venezuela is now being positioned to sell their oil at fire-bargain prices, and Maduro knows it.
