Shot In The Dark: Citgo?

September 22, 2006

Citgo?

While the likes of Al Sharpton may slip Hugo Chavez a little tongue, religious figures in Venezuela are less enthusiastic:

Cardinal Castillo accused Chavez of despotism and called him a "paranoid dictator." Chavez, in turn, has blasted the cardinal, calling him a "bandit" who has "the devil in him." Last month, Chavez said: "The Catholic hierarchy never gets tired of attacking this government, this revolution." In the past Chavez has compared himself favorably with Jesus Christ and has called the country's bishops elitist and out-of-touch "devils."

The bishops also rejected attempts to discredit and mistreat those who express opposing views in political matters, saying "all persons and institutions have the right to believe according to their own convictions; such a right must be maintained and respected in any democratic society."

They also acknowledged the difficult period which the country is facing, and they encouraged Cardinal Castillo to continue "carrying out his mission of proclaiming the beatitudes and denouncing everything that harms fraternity, coexistence, freedom, justice and peace."

In semi-related news, I only learned yesterday that CITGO is owned by...Venezuela.

This fact hasn't escaped the screechy-left community; our old friend Jeff Cohen at Common Dreams (which, protestations aside, is as close to an official voice of the current mainstream left as any I've found) says:

Buy your gasoline at Citgo stations.

And tell your friends.

Of the top oil producing countries in the world, only one is a democracy with a president who was elected on a platform of using his nation's oil revenue to benefit the poor. The country is Venezuela. The President is Hugo Chavez. Call him "the Anti-Bush."

Citgo is a U.S. refining and marketing firm that is a wholly owned subsidiary of Venezuela's state-owned oil company. Money you pay to Citgo goes primarily to Venezuela -- not Saudi Arabia or the Middle East. There are 14,000 Citgo gas stations in the US. (Click here http://www.citgo.com/CITGOLocator/StoreLocator.jsp to find one near you.) By buying your gasoline at Citgo, you are contributing to the billions of dollars that Venezuela's democratic government is using to provide health care, literacy and education, and subsidized food for the majority of Venezuelans.

Instead of using government to help the rich and the corporate, as Bush does, Chavez is using the resources and oil revenue of his government to help the poor in Venezuela.

Which buys populist cover, naturally, for widespread corruption.

I don't normally go in for boycotts - in this case, plenty of American businessmen who have nothing to do with Chavez would get hurt long before Chavez' government felt the pinch, and that wouldn't faze Chavez one bit.

And I rarely go to Citgo anyway - the stores tend to be dirty and scuzzy and their prices are usually a few cents above other options nearby.

But whenever temptation strikes, this'll certainly keep me going elsewhere...

Posted by Mitch at September 22, 2006 06:32 AM | TrackBack

Comments

Even before Bush, Chavez found the devil in a Catholic cardinal?????

What is it with this man, always with the devil?

Posted by: Scott at September 22, 2006 09:12 AM

This does beg the question, where can one buy gasoline where the the profit doesn't end up in the Middle East or Venezuala, or some other totalitarian regime?

Posted by: Fulcrum at September 22, 2006 09:48 AM

Pretty soon leftist Minnesotans won't be able to buy Hugo Jugo (Hugo juice). Citgo is cutting a bunch of states out of its distributorships and MN is one. Speculation in the industry is that Hugo is running the state oil company into the ground by squeezing it for his populist programs and for his corrupt freinds and not plowing any back into the industry for investment and maintenence. The bottom line is that with decreases in production they don't have enough to meet their committments to distributors which means that they have to buy gas and oil on the open market themselves. Expensivo! Luckily other producers even state owned OPEC ones have been happy to step up production despite Hugo's wish that they cut production too to keep the price of gas high. We'll soon see those Citgos in MN replaced by other logos.

Posted by: Margaret at September 22, 2006 11:08 AM

If only we had someone around here who knew a lot about Venezuela. Hmmmmm...

(Hope I didn't get the country wrong, Margaret - you're from Venezuela, right?)

Posted by: Miguel at September 22, 2006 11:14 AM

I buy my gas at Sunoco. My five-minute internet research told me a couple of years ago, and does so again today, that Sunoco primarily gets oil from fields in the US And Canada. There may be oil coming in from other areas, but I feel better about buying from Sunoco than I do from other brands.

Posted by: Dave in Pgh. at September 22, 2006 11:15 AM

Dave: Where are these Sunoco stations? I searched their website for a 50 mile radius of St. Paul and it did not provide one station.

Posted by: Fulcrum at September 22, 2006 11:42 AM

Sometimes we lowly bloggers scribble in vain. I had a post in March about Citgo and Venezuela. The benefit Citgo provides here in the US is refineries that can handle Venezuela's high sulfur content petroleum.

Chavez has made noises about selling Citgo, as a threat to the US to take diminish the supply from Venezuela, and he's been making overtures to China, but China's refineries can't handle Venezuela's oil.

So, Chavez and Citgo are probably stuck with the US for the time being.

Posted by: Jeff at September 22, 2006 12:28 PM

Here in Minnesota we get our oil primarily Canada as it is the best for delivery to our area. http://www.startribune.com/535/story/685979.html

Even if you do buy your gas at Citgo most likely the gasoline came from the local Ashland or Flint Hills refinery. Then the next question is the Citgo station locally owned?

Dave

Posted by: Dave at September 22, 2006 02:27 PM

Ah, wingnuts. Oil is a commodity. Whether you buy gas from Venezuela matters not at all to the price they get or the price we pay. Squeeze the balloon here, it pushes out there. In any case, Chavez is a sideshow. Concentrate on true threats to the U.S., not tin-pot dictators who insult the president. And if you do go ahead and invade some third-world hellhole for no good reason, try to win, 'kay?

Posted by: angryclown at September 22, 2006 04:18 PM

And if you do go ahead and invade some third-world hellhole for no good reason, try to win, 'kay?

And the best way to do that is execute the fifthcolumnists.

Posted by: al at September 22, 2006 05:55 PM

No, I am not from Venezuela but I spent considerable time there like David (above) and still follow what goes on there through great blogs like Quico's Caracas Chronicles.

Quico had a great analysis awhile back about Chavez' threat to sell to China. Assuming that China had the right kind of refineries, which it apparently doesn't at the moment, if Venezuelan oil went to China, then more Russian, Middle Eastern and maybe North Sea oil would be shipped to the US. The Mexicans could also step up production, but the main impact would be in the shipping industry where Venezuelan oil would go all the way to China and the Russian and Middle Eastern Oil would have to go farther. Chavez would get his jollies but there would be virtually no impact on supply. Any additional markup would be due to transportation costs so he wouldn't see any of that money. To remain competative, producers might even have to eat some of that cost.

Unfortunately, I can't agree with David's assessment that the worm has turned on Chavez yet. There are some rumblings right now but this has happened before and Chavez always manages to threaten or buy off enemies. About 1/3 of the country are strong supporters, about 1/3 are fiercely opposed to him and another third dislike Chavez but distrust the opposition even more (they are refered to as "the ni-ni's" (the neither nors)). This last group has yet to find an option to Chavez that they like. When they do, bye bye Hugo.

Posted by: Margaret at September 23, 2006 12:00 AM

Sunoco is primarily an east coast based operation, with headquarters in Philadelphia. Sorry, I hadn't know that before -- I should have done ten minutes of research instead of five!

Sinclair is supposed to be another good US/Canada source, but they don't have Minnesota locations either.

Hess is the third and final non-Middle Eastern oil source gas company...and all of their stations are even farther east than Pittsburgh.

What's a Minnesotan to do?

Posted by: Dave in Pgh. at September 23, 2006 08:49 AM

Sinclair DOES have stations in the TC metro.

Posted by: mitch at September 23, 2006 09:23 AM

I usually buy gas from Conoco, but now I am switching to Citgo for next 6 months. If the Chavez is so "bad" how come 2/3 of UN nations assembly vigorously applauded to his speech? Those are leaders of many countries. Don't you think that we have some PROBLEM here? Is the rest of the world stupid? That is what you say...

Posted by: richard at September 23, 2006 08:28 PM

Hi Richard, Hugo Chavez has been attacking the Catholic Church in Venezuela for years. He trashed the constitution and fired his congress. His police opened fire on protesters. I saw that so don't try to deny it. He seized control of the press. He shut down television stations for speaking against him. This is the kind of person you want to support? Personally I will buy elsewhere.

Posted by: John at September 28, 2006 11:30 AM

John, I disagree with your comments. Please see the movie "The revolution will not be televized." The TV stations are owned by big corporations and regularly criticize him. Please say the time and location of the "police shooting on protestors." Chavez is a devout Catholic. See:
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/15/1334249

The other oil companies buy their gas from Arab countries which use them to fund terrorism. The companies buy them indirectly from Iran, Saudi Arabia, and even Libya through distributors. Even officially, 4% of Libya's oil goes to to the US. 3% of US oil comes from Colombia, the most bloody violator of human rights in Latin America. Saudi Arabia gives its profits to the "royal family" (eg Bin Laden).

This is far worse than a democratically elected Venezuelan president who conflicts with the Bush administration over globalization.

The area I live in Eastern Pennsylvania has the highest unemployment in the state. All the jobs are going to Mexico and Latin America because people are getting paid 1 an hour for a job that would pay a US worker 20$ an hour.

The first time I heard Venezuela criticized on the news, it was CNN saying Chavez spoke at an "anti-American" rally in Argentina. Then she cut over to a reporter actually at the protest. He said, no, the protest is not anti-American. They like the American people. This is an anti-globalization protest, and the people are protesting the system that gives them horrible working conditions. Van Sustren, the CNN moderator replied, "Anti-globalist, Anti-American, whatever," totally ignoring the fact that the reporter said they were not anti-American!

The corporations who move to Venezuela don't like it now that the government is regulating them to make them pay decent wages. And if Latin American countries paid people decent wages, Mexicans would not be pouring across the border, and jobs would not be pouring out of America.

If Chavez has a conflict with Bush and the corporate news about globaliztion, that's fine- our country would be better off without it.

Buy oil from Venezuela, not Saudi Arabia.

Posted by: Hal at September 28, 2006 06:28 PM

Mary, I'm with you. How can we as American citizens support Venezuela while their dictator insults us by insulting our president? I feel sorry for the Venezuelans, but I will not buy Citgo gasoline no matter the lower cost, no matter the damage control they are attempting via TV and radio ads until an apology is given to our president by Hugo Chavez.

Posted by: Elizabeth at October 2, 2006 09:01 AM

There are plenty of choices. Basically, it's any station BUT Citgo. Did you know Citgo spends millions of dollars promoting the Green Bay Packers and Chicago White Sox pretend they are all-American?