Chavez offered Bush $50 per barrel oil but was refused.....

[Postman]

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/15/1334249

Greg Palast on His New Book “Armed Madhouse : Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf?, China Floats, Bush Sinks, The Scheme to Steal '08…”

[madrchsod]

1. greg is always a head of the curve

it`s going to be interesting isn`t?

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. I think Palast hasn't quite got that right

Chavez was looking for a price to be set in international trading that allows the Venezuelan extra heavy crude oil deposits to be extracted economically, and for the reserves to be counted in its OPEC production quota.

"We have the largest oil reserves in the world, we have oil for 200 years." Mr Chávez told the BBC's Newsnight programme in an interview to be broadcast tonight. "$50 a barrel - that's a fair price, not a high price."

The price proposed by Mr Chávez is about $15 a barrel below the current global level but a credible long-term agreement at about $50 a barrel could have huge implications for Venezuela's standing in the international oil community.

According to US sources, Venezuela holds 90% of the world's extra heavy crude oil - deposits which have to be turned into synthetic light crude before they can be refined and which only become economic to operate with the oil price at about $40 a barrel. Newsnight cites a report from the US Energy Information Administrator, Guy Caruso, suggesting Venezuela could have more than a trillion barrels of reserves.

A $50-a-barrel lock-in would open the way for Venezuela, already the world's fifth-largest oil exporter, to demand a huge increase in its official oil reserves - allowing it to demand a big increase in its production allowance within Opec.

http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1745467,00.html

That's quite different from ofering the oil to the US, and being turned down.

[bbinacan]

3. Is there even a refinery in the US that

can process heavy crude?:shrug: