Image Credit: Anna Moneymaker / Staff / Getty 
On Wednesday evening President Donald Trump stated that he held a call with Venezuela’s Interim President Delcy Rodriguez. The two discussed what’s needed for the country to “stabilize and recover” after Trump’s capture of the country’s Dictator Nicolas Maduro.
This morning I had a very good call with the Interim President of Venezuela, Delcy Rodríguez. We are making tremendous progress, as we help Venezuela stabilize and recover. Many topics were discussed, including Oil, Minerals, Trade and, of course, National Security. This partnership between the United States of America and Venezuela will be a spectacular one FOR ALL. Venezuela will soon be great and prosperous again, perhaps more so than ever before!
Trump’s announcement Wednesday highlighted the strategic nature of the mineral-rich country, as well as its geopolitical significance in the global “grand chessboard.”
Topics that Trump said were discussed were “Oil, Minerals, Trade and, of course, National Security,” he wrote.
Venezuela is listed by numerous sources as being the country with the single biggest oil reserves. Its oil is categorized as sour heavy crude, a tar-like oil that takes extra work to refine into useable fuels. Oil refineries along the Gulf Coast of the U.S. are set up for this type of refining, making a Venezuelan oil deal advantageous to the U.S.
“Most of Venezuela’s crude supply is heavy, sour oil, which if you’re a U.S. refiner is one of the most ideal grades of crude you could ask for,” Janiv Shah, a vice-president at Rystad Energy, a global consultancy said. “At the moment, U.S. refineries import heavy crude into the Gulf states via pipeline from Canada and there are also heavy crude options from Colombia and Mexico. But securing Venezuelan crude would be in addition to these, and the geographic proximity of Venezuela helps too.”
There are three main ways to categorize crude oil – weight, sweetness and TAN count.
Kimray Inc., a manufacturer of oil and gas control equipment, explained the various types of crude oil:
WEIGHT:
Heavy oil evaporates slowly and contains material that will be used to make heavy products like asphalt.
Light oil requires less processing and produces a greater percentage of gasoline and diesel than heavy oil.
SWEET VS SOUR:
What makes a particular crude sweet or sour is the amount of sulfur it contains. Sweet crude has very low levels of sulfur, well under 1%. Sour crude has as much as 1-2% of sulfur.
Midstream companies and refiners that transport, store, and process sour oil know they need extra treating capabilities to take out the sulfur and sweeten the product.
TAN COUNT:
TAN stands for “Total Acid Number.” The TAN count of oil is a measure of how corrosive it is.
If a crude has a high TAN number, producers must use more robust metallurgy than standard so their processes can handle that corrosivity and keep the crude in the pipe.
Trump’s national security topic ties into the oil topic. Before his naval blockade of Venezuela in December, the country exported most its oil to China. With China now cut off, or at least having to deal with the U.S. for access to Venezuelan oil, the Western Hemisphere is being recaptured by the U.S. after years of Sino-encroachment.
Trump is against generating electricity with wind turbines that kill birds and don’t generate power when the wind is too low or too high, as well as harm the environment in the long-run by being un-recyclable. Access to a new major oil reserve is likely a very attractive asset to an America under Trump.
Also of national security importance is Venezuelan’s relationship to U.S. election fraud systems. Trump has recently been posting examples of this on his social media.
Secretary of the Department of War Pete Hegseth recently explained how Trump’s Venezuela operation is about securing and stabilizing the Western Hemisphere, an issue with national security implications.
Minerals are the other topic Trump said he spoke to Rodriguez about. The President was big on getting a mineral deal with Ukraine to repay the U.S. for its war funding, so it is possible the U.S. is drafting an economic cooperation plan regarding Venezuelan mineral resources.
