Why isn’t Venezuela vs. Exxon a bigger deal?

Friday, February 15th, 2008

Venezuela has taken steps to fortify their dominance in the oil and gas market, and has said it will suspend oil shipments to Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM: chart, web, Y!). This is an obvious attempt by Hugo Chavez to thumb his nose at the United States, however I’m not sure what his true motivation is: money or power… perhaps both.

You see, the crude oil coming out of Venezuela is heavy crude high in sulfur, making it very difficult to refine in comparison to light sweet crude. The high sulfuric content wreaks havoc on industrial components due to its highly caustic and corrosive …