[Oilguy]

According to the U.S. Energy Administration, two months ago the United States total crude oil imports averaged 9,033 thousand barrels per day (tbpd), with the top five exporting countries being Canada (2,666 tbpd), Mexico (1,319 tbpd), Saudi Arabia (1,107 tbpd), Venezuela (930 tbpd) and Nigeria (918 tbpd.)

Notice anything odd about this list? First, three of the top five oil exporters to the U.S. are in the Western hemisphere, and two of them are neighbors.

Secondly, only two of the five states can comfortably be described as stable. Mexico is slowly unraveling due to the drug war, Nigeria’s militant regularly attack foreign oil concessions in the Niger delta and Saudi Arabia’s geriatric monarchy is nervously watching events unfold in the Middle East, wondering if the “Arab spring” may impact their autocratic hold on power, a view no doubt made more nervous by the sudden arrival on 6 June of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh to Saudi Arabia for medical treatment.

Of the remaining two, Canada is a stable, prosperous state, and its relations with Washington are excellent.

Which leaves Venezuela – while a stable state, its policies under President Hugo Chávez have rattled Washington to the point that since 2010 neither state has had accredited ambassadors.

On 28 June 2010 President Obama nominated Palmer as U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela but three months later Chávez announced on his weekly TV program that he would not allow Larry Palmer to take up his post after Palmer told a US senator that morale in the Venezuelan army was low and that members of Chávez's government had ties to leftist FARC Colombian rebels. On 28 December Chávez flatly refused to accept Palmer because of his derogatory remarks and the following day the U.S. revoked the accreditation of Venezuelan ambassador, Bernardo Álvarez Herrera.

Worse, on Sunday Venezuelan Minister of Foreign Affairs Nicolás Maduro in an exclusive interview with private TV network Televen said, “The relation (with the U.S.) is frozen... It does not move and there is no indication that there could be positive elements of communication and respect in the near future.”

What led to the impasse? Chávez’s final sin in Washington’s eyes was Venezuela's state-owned oil company Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) supplying gasoline and other refined oil products to Iran, which led the Obama administration on 24 May to impose sanctions against PDVSA. In response, Venezuela's Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez, who is also the head of PDVSA, said the following day that as a sovereign nation Venezuela would continue to maintain relations with Iran and any other country it wanted, adding, “This is a right we are not going to renounce.”
Full article at: http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-Gener ... epair.html