What to make of this America-Venezuela oil deal, this best in history? First, it’s best to put the 65 billion barrels of heavy crude in its proper place. It’s the Donny and Delcy Gong Show. A quarter of Venezuela’s premier national treasure, a concealed deal, a very shaky setup, executed when there was no moon. Only the PPP is absent from this development. Relook at what was just broadcast: national treasure, secret deal, shaky setup, that’s the PPP in Technicolor.
What’s fascinating to a peasant like me is that the U.S. speaks of law and order, and rule of law (has a Guyanese ring, doesn’t it?), and still cuts a huge oil deal with the Caracas Top Cat, Excellency Delcy Rodrigues, and with a man of means named Betancourt. Both have huge files at various American entities whose job is crime containment and law enforcement. Senor Betancourt is a man of many interests, and of interest. Like his Interim First Lady, he’s the beneficiary of an unofficial presidential reprieve. Whoever said that public service doesn’t pay had better get in on that joke. Ditto with that ditty about crime doesn’t prosper.
Closer to Guyana’s place in this new US-Venezuela contraption, I see a positive. With the U.S. and Venezuela now as tight as kissing cousins, the door could be opened for Exxon to explore fully Guyana’s Stabroek Block. Put differently, there are no off-limits waters. Two oil geese brought down and plucked with one well-aimed laser. Like the man said, the biggest and best deal in history. Of anything! Which Venezuelan hawk-admiral or general-is so daring to make his position (objection) public? It could be that was why Exxon’s Bossman, Mr. Darren Woods, spoke so earnestly and ecstatically about four new revolutionary oil finds in Guyana’s offshore Atlantis within grasp. This stew is getting thicker and richer daily.
