Venezuelan Oil Exports To China Triple As Shipments To US Decline - AFP

Venezuelan oil exports to China are on the rise at the same time sales to the United States are on the decline, the U.S. Department of Energy reported. Venezuela's state-run energy company PDVSA announced South America's largest oil exporter shipped an average of 197,000 barrels per day of crude oil and byproducts to China so far in 2007, El Universal newspaper reported Tuesday.

While that amount pales in comparison to the nearly 1.4 million bpd of Venezuelan oil that was exported to the United States in July, China's exports have risen nearly three-fold since last year.

Erik Kreil, an international oil market analyst at the U.S. Energy Information Administration, noted that Venezuela's exports to China were 27,500 bpd day in the first half of 2005, the first full year Beijing began pursuing Venezuelan petroleum. By the first half of 2006, Venezuelan oil exports reached 70,000 bpd.

Kreil and others attribute the increase to China's own growing demand for fuel, as well as Venezuela's desire to diversify its customer portfolio and reduce its dependency on the United States. "But China can only take so much," Kreil told United Press International Tuesday. "The bottom line is there is only so much they can diversify away" from the United States.

EDIT

http://www.energy-daily.com/reports/Analysis_Venezuela_ups_exports_to_China_999.html

It's just a matter of time before the world's oil producing countries embargo the U.S. Then it's going to get very interesting indeed.

The Net Export Problem will do it for us. All the world's exporters need to do is make sure that either a) their own citizens are kept supplied first, or b) they keep some of the oil in the ground to sell later when the price is higher...

The international oil market is going to be a very different place in ten of fifteen years. Nothing personal, you understand - it's just business.

of the world's oil as exporting countries supply their internal markets first and supplies overall decline.

I'm making a quick summary of my views for the benefit of others here. I'm sure that you are familiar with similar ideas, and I would welcome your comments.

At 25% of world production approximately, we here in the States have a lot of fat to cut. Say in 30 or 40 years, maybe less, the global production of "all liquids," including all sorts of stuff not included in any definition of "petroleum" or "natural gas" will be at about 60 mil and day, not 85. Of course, the net energy of much of the heavy petroleum and substitutes will be low. Say exports decline 50%, and the U.S., being much poorer and less powerful, will get half of its 25% share, and the net energy would be less.

I'm no math whiz, but that's a LOT less oil. If we're doing 21 mil a day here now, maybe that'd end up in the 5-7 mil zone spread out among about 100,000,000 more people. I think that it will be tough to do things that really require liquid fuel, like agriculture and any off-road economic activity. Electricity could take up the slack, but, IMHO, renewables alone won't do the trick and nuclear may be difficult to ramp up considering its drawbacks and organized opposition, notwithstanding the petroleum needed for the construction equipment. I don't expect opposition to drop much until things get bad.

And I'm not even considering natural gas.

I expect Canada to take care of Canadians first, but I wouldn't want to be as close as you are to an angry pack of 400,000,000 million U.S.-ians. A little sharing may be in the best interests of both of us.

As I have written many times before, I urge anyone with an interest in this topic to check out theoildrum website. Some posters there are very pessimistic, but there's a lot of very good information and links. I highly recommend it.

Orimulsion is petroleum that can't
otherwise be pumped, that has
water and soap added, to make it more liquid.
nasty stuff, high sulfur,
but ok to burn in a Chinese power plant.

I suppose that is what China is getting