After Russia’s president Vladimir Putin launched the invasion of Ukraine, the U.S. along with many of Washington’s allies banned imports of Russian crude oil. This caused energy prices to soar seeing the international Brent price rise to over $129 per barrel during March 2022, its highest level since 2008. Spiraling domestic gasoline prices saw President Joe Biden search for alternate supplies of oil. The White House reopened diplomatic relations with Venezuela which had been suspended since January 2019 when President Trump ratcheted-up sanctions to unseat dictatorial President Nicolas Maduro. This sparked furor with some pundits viewing it as a cynical ploy to access Venezuela’s vast oil reserves at a politically critical moment. Since then, the White House has eased sanctions by authorizing energy supermajor Chevron to extract and export oil from Venezuela which it hopes will ease the energy crisis. It is easy to see the attraction of Venezuelan crude oil for a White House battling rampant inflation and sharply higher oil prices which have caused prices, especially for gasoline and diesel to spiral higher. The pariah South American country, which was a founding member of OPEC, possesses the world’s largest oil reserves totaling around 304 billion barrels and […]
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