Watching the Biden administration go hat-in-hand to ask for more oil production from the despotic regime of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela reminded me of the reason why the Keystone XL Pipeline was such a key system for U.S. energy security. According to the U.S. State Department in 2014, America’s energy system had a need for more heavy crude from Canada to replace declining volumes from Mexico and – you guessed it – Venezuela.
“Gulf Coast refiners’ traditional sources of heavy crudes, particularly Mexico and Venezuela, are declining and are expected to continue to decline. This results in a situation where the refiners have significant incentive to obtain heavy crude from the oil sands. Both the EIA’s 2013 AEO (EIA 2013a) and EnSys WORLD model indicate that this demand for heavy crude in the Gulf Coast refineries is likely to persist.”
