Don’t Buy CITGO – It’s a Test

Reuters reported in August that Americans drove 12.2 billion miles fewer miles less in June 2008 than they did in June 2007; the eighth month in a row that driving declined and essentially erasing five years of growth in gasoline demand. Energy Department data in August showed total U.S. petroleum demand shrank by an average 800,000 barrels a day during the first half of this year, the biggest decline in 26 years. According to Reuters, from November 2007 to August 2008, motorists drove 53.2 billion fewer miles than they did over the same period a year earlier. Bravo.

Reuters reported in August that Americans drove 12.2 billion miles fewer miles less in June 2008 than they did in June 2007; the eighth month in a row that driving declined and essentially erasing five years of growth in gasoline demand. Energy Department data in August showed total U.S. petroleum demand shrank by an average 800,000 barrels a day during the first half of this year, the biggest decline in 26 years. According to Reuters, from November 2007 to August 2008, motorists drove 53.2 billion fewer miles than they did over the same period a year earlier. Bravo.

But an informal survey in our area shows gas prices down from a high of $4.35 to a recent $3.19 and dropping, a major difference in each fill up. We now run the risk of returning to our wasteful ways.

It would be a mistake for economic, ecological and national security reasons – getting the last one right is a prerequisite for getting the others right. It is a quirk that put the oil under despotic regimes, but it requires that one of America’s military priorities is to maintain the free flow of oil and the waterways through which it flows. Whatever the price per gallon, filling up provides Iran, Venezuela, Russia, and Saudi Arabia with the funds to export revolution and terrorism, or to bend the political will of others to their liking. And it increases the difficulty of protecting the sources and passages.

Now we have an opportunity for push back and we should take it.

According to a recent Associated Press story, the Venezuelan state oil company produced 3.2 million b/p/d in 1998, the year before Hugo Chavez became president. Daily output is now 2.4 million barrels. “About half of this oil is now delivered at a discount to Mr. Chavez’s friends around Latin America. The 18 nations in his ‘Petrocaribe’ club, founded in 2005, pay Venezuela only 30 per cent of the market price within 90 days, with the rest in installments spread over 25 years. The other half – 1.2 million barrels per day – goes to America, Venezuela’s only genuinely paying customer.”

The story concludes, “Now that prices are falling, Mr. Chavez faces huge financial problems. Nobody is sure at what point his government would be unable to pay its bills, but most sources consulted believe this would probably happen if oil falls to $80 a barrel. Yesterday (13 October), oil was trading at $79.80.”

Let’s help him find out. CITGO exclusively sells gasoline made from Venezuelan oil. Stop buying it. Not because Venezuela is worse than Saudi Arabia, but because only with CITGO do we know where all the gas comes from.

Let’s see if we can maintain our newly diminished driving habits and shift our purchases away from Venezuelan gas in the interest of sinking a pro-Iranian, anti-American dictator in our own hemisphere. Then, as hybrids and (in the future) electric cars – plus drilling, nuclear, solar and wind further reduce our dependence on black stuff from nasty countries, who knows where we can next exert our influence?