Venezuela's oil monopoly will use Habana as its base of operations for the Caribbean
From Forbes

Venezuela's state-run company Petroleos de Venezuela, or PDVSA, will open an office in Cuba during a meeting aimed at boosting trade between the two Caribbean nations this week, the government news agency reported Tuesday.

El Herald has further details (my translation):

Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), que abrirá hoy una oficina en La Habana, planea utilizar a Cuba como centro para sus operaciones en el Caribe, dijo ayer el ministro venezolano de Energía y Petróleo, Rafael Ramírez.
Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), which is opening today its Habana office, plans to use Cuba as its center of operations for the Caribbean, stated Rafael Ramírez, Venezuela's minister for Energy and Oil.

Ramírez stated that Venezuela's sending Cuba over 50,000 barrells per day, and that the PDVSA office in Habana will be in charge of commerce, storage, and transport. Venezuela's also opening a branch of the state-owned Banco Industrial de Venezuela in Habana.

It doesn't really take a rocket scientist to realize that, since Venezuela's a Caribbean country and already has the necessary infrastructure to carry out all its commercial activity, opening this office and the bank in Havana is simply a means to further merge Venezuela's rapid descent into communism and finance Castro's goverment while avoiding those pesky investigations on corruption scandals and the subsequent calls for financial transparency at PDVSA.

As I mentioned before, Citgo, which has eight refineries and some 13,000 service stations across the U.S., is owned by Petróleos de Venezuela SA. What Venezuela does concerns us directly.

Additionally, Chávez has gone on the record saying that “oil is a geopolitical weapon”.

Carlos Alberto Montaner pointed out last week that,

when the Cuban army became the largest in Latin America it ended up invading Angola and Ethiopia with tens of thousands of soldiers, who -- from 1975 to 1989 -- fought in Africa the longest war ever waged by a foreign force: 14 years.

Cuba might not be at that stage again, and Chávez is certainly making headway in his arms race, but the USA's most immediate need is elsewhere: energy.

Yesterday President Bush started to address the subject:

President Bush called for construction of more nuclear power plants and urged Congress on Wednesday to give tax breaks for fuel-efficient hybrid and clean-diesel cars. He also said he was powerless to bring down high gasoline costs.

Calling the problem one of not having enough energy supplies to keep pace with demand, Bush said technology will provide the answer in the long run by allowing development of more domestic energy sources.

''Technology is the ticket,'' said Bush, calling today's tight energy markets ''a problem that has been years in the making'' and will take time to resolve. He said he was determined to spur development of more nuclear power, coal, oil and renewable energy and again called on Congress to provide him with a national energy agenda.

And not a minute too soon.

Also posted at Blogger News Network