Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.
PaperclipPerfector
1mo ago
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Transnational Thursday for December 18, 2025
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Venezuelan oil isn’t for today, it’s for fifty years from now. The Ghawar and North Sea oil fields are drying up rapidly. Pretty soon the two major sources of oil on the planet are going to be Venezuela and Siberia. Sure Venezuelan oil is heavy sour crude, but when that’s all you can get it will taste like mana from heaven. When you are a state, you have to think on longer time frames than the individual. Fifty years from now might as well be next Thursday.
Do you think that oil will really matter that much in 50 years? Solar is outcompeting all other forms of electricity production and electric cars are replacing petrol ones. Oil is useful as a manufacturing material I guess, but in 50 years the global population will be in freefall thanks to low birthrates and the carbon transition will be completed. Surely there will be plenty of oil to go around?
Airplanes? Ships? Semi-trucks? Electric cars are only good for suburban commuters. Everyone else needs a power source that can last over long distances and doesn't take ten hours to recharge.
As for solar, battery storage capacity lags far behind power generation capacity. Which is a problem, because it means solar is unreliable. It doesn't matter if on average solar can produce all the power you need; a couple of cloudy days in a row will screw you over.
Not there yet, but in fifty years, I'd wager so. They're already in development.
For cargo shipping, there are already electric versions. Of course, cargo shipping doesn't really consume that much fuel relative to how much stuff they transport. Again, in fifty years we can reasonably expect technology to have improved.
These already exist.
Solar and batteries are now cheap enough (and getting cheaper!) that grid-level storage is possible. We don't need any new technological innovations, just to scale today's technology at today's prices, which is exactly what's happening. Combine some overbuilding with solar panels (easy now that they are dirt cheap) along with some wind turbines and you've got yourself constant power, since wind and sunshine are anticorrelated. Not that oil even matters for electricity generation, almost all fossil fuels used to power grids are coal and gas, which are now significantly more expensive than solar panels and wind turbines.
Worrying about oil in 50 years is like worrying about shortages of natural rubber now. Technology has superceded old requirements. The future is now.
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All minor in terms of consumption. Regardless, biofuels can be uses for airplanes and ammonia for ships and semi-trucks.
This is a problem that will be solved in 50 years. Probably closer to 10 years.
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And you expect them to do what, exactly? The issue here isn't access; the Venezuelans are perfectly willing to sell their oil to the US at favorable prices. Yet Trump made it so Citgo couldn't do what limited business they were doing down there at the time. We're already at an advantage on that front to begin with since US companies are among the few that can actually refine the toothpaste sludge that they call oil down there. And even if the Bolivaran regime absolutely refused to sell us oil or grant US companies concessions, it wouldn't matter that much, since it's a global market. If there is some future where Venezuelan oil is the only game in town, Chevron isn't going to sell it at a favorable price to the American consumer, I can tell you that right now. Whatever impediments there are to our "having" that oil are entirely political.
But even if we assume that the Venezuela won't sell us oil under the current government and won't grant US companies concessions and the only way to get access is to regime change their asses, it still doesn't make sense unless you're hopelessly naive about the way oil concessions actually work. A freindly, Democratic Venezuelan government is not going to grant some magic lease that lets US companies sit on their asses for fifty years. Any oil deal, whether you're talking about a private lease in the US or an international concession, is going to require a certain amount of activity in order to retain the rights. For instance, here if you sign a lease with a company to drill on your farm and it will call for something like a 5 year primary term with a $3,000/acre bonus payment and a 15% royalty. What this means is that the comp[any has to pay you $300,000 up front for the right to drill a well within the next 5 years. If they drill a well and start paying royalties then the lease holds until the well stops producing. If the term expires and they haven't done anything then they're out the $300,000 and you're free to lease it to someone else.
International concessions are a lot more complicated, but the same principles apply. The biggest difference is that up-front bonus payments don't normally apply, but there's usually a commitment to start development within the first year, and the company is contractually obligated to spend millions of dollars on development. Whether you're a private landowner or a sovereign government, there's an expectation that if you give away something of value you expect something of value in return. Governments don't grant concessions so they'll eventually get paid when the grantee feels like doing something; if you're not going to act now they'll grant a concession to someone who will.
Was that before or after Venezuela took six Citgo executives hostage in 2017?
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