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Posted By: Jay Miller

Jaime--I traded oil for 16 years and trust me when I say that what you are proposing makes zero sense. First, the oil market is a global one. If the U.S. for some reason chose to not buy Venezuelan oil it would simply flow to another consuming country. The U.S. would be forced to supply its refineries from other sources which would involve less optimal crude streams and higher transportation costs. This would increase the prices of petroleum products in the U.S. and make those high pump prices even higher. That is the very reason that unilateral embargos don't work in the oil market. We boycott Libyan oil, but so what. It simply is sold to some other country and the impact on Libya is minimal.Besides, the Venezuelan state oil companies own several refineries in the U.S. and they don't need to "sell" the U.S. oil. They take it to their own refineries here, refine it, and sell the gasoline, heating oil and other derivative products themselves in the states.Besides, as the U.S. strives for security of supply, the only way to truely achieve that is through supply diversity. To eliminate any supplier makes minimal sense and to arbitrarily eliminate one of our geographically closest suppliers makes no sense.