Following Maduro's arrest last weekend, the Trump administration plans to sell heavy, high-sulphur, corrosive crude oil produced in Venezuela in the US. From Corpus Christi, Texas to the US Gulf Coast refinery in Pascagoula, Mississippi, the equipment is just right for processing this type of crude oil. According to data from the US Energy Information Administration, the total potential processing capacity of the 21 major refineries along the coast together exceeds 7 million b/d. Among them, Texas is the core region, which concentrates the most production capacity. Motiva's Port Arthur refinery topped the list with a production capacity of 640,500 b/d. Since the 1990s, refiners have been transforming plants, increasing coking capacity and upgrading steel to cope with growing production of heavy, high-sulphur crude oil from countries such as Venezuela, Mexico, and Ecuador. The Venezuelan national oil company PDVSA has purchased two US refineries and has established partnerships with ExxonMobil and Leander Basel in the other two refineries. However, at the beginning of the 21st century, as crude oil production in Latin America declined, the Midwestern refineries of the United States, which originally received Venezuelan crude oil, switched to heavy crude oil from Canadian oil fields.

Following Maduro's arrest last weekend, the Trump administration plans to sell heavy, high-sulphur, corrosive crude oil produced in Venezuela in the US. From Corpus Christi, Texas to the US Gulf Coast refinery in Pascagoula, Mississippi, the equipment is just right for processing this type of crude oil. According to data from the US Energy Information Administration, the total potential processing capacity of the 21 major refineries along the coast together exceeds 7 million b/d. Among them, Texas is the core region, which concentrates the most production capacity. Motiva's Port Arthur refinery topped the list with a production capacity of 640,500 b/d. Since the 1990s, refiners have been transforming plants, increasing coking capacity and upgrading steel to cope with growing production of heavy, high-sulphur crude oil from countries such as Venezuela, Mexico, and Ecuador. The Venezuelan national oil company PDVSA has purchased two US refineries and has established partnerships with ExxonMobil and Leander Basel in the other two refineries. However, at the beginning of the 21st century, as crude oil production in Latin America declined, the Midwestern refineries of the United States, which originally received Venezuelan crude oil, switched to heavy crude oil from Canadian oil fields.