# Why does Venezuela export oil to Saudi Arabia?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-venezuela-export-oil-to-saudi-arabia/437168>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [February 11, 2008, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-venezuela-export-oil-to-saudi-arabia/437168 "2008-02-11T17:17:35Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![WorkInProgress](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@WorkInProgress](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WorkInProgress)\
**Post date:** [February 11, 2008, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-venezuela-export-oil-to-saudi-arabia/437168/1 "2008-02-11T17:17:35Z")

</div>

Per this news item:

> **[Breitbart News Network](https://www.breitbart.com/)**
>
> Syndicated news and opinion website providing continuously updated headlines to top news and analysis sources.

Doesn’t Saudi Arabia have enough oil?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![aktep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f0a364/32.png) [@aktep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aktep)\
**Post date:** [February 11, 2008, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-venezuela-export-oil-to-saudi-arabia/437168/2 "2008-02-11T17:29:32Z")

</div>

[QUOTE=WorkInProgress]  
Per this news item:

> **[Breitbart News Network](https://www.breitbart.com/)**
>
> Syndicated news and opinion website providing continuously updated headlines to top news and analysis sources.

Doesn’t Saudi Arabia have enough oil?  
[/QUOTE]

are you referring to this paragraph?

> [@](#):
>
> Venezuela accounted for about 12 percent of U.S. crude oil imports in November, the latest figures available from the U.S. Energy Department. The 1.23 million barrels a day from Venezuela makes that country the U.S.'s fourth-biggest oil importer behind Canada, Saudi Arabia and Mexico.

That’s a list of the countries the US imports from, not Venezuela.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Precambrianmollusc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/precambrianmollusc/32/63_2.png) [@Precambrianmollusc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Precambrianmollusc)\
**Post date:** [February 11, 2008, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-venezuela-export-oil-to-saudi-arabia/437168/3 "2008-02-11T17:31:29Z")

</div>

I am not sure where it says in the article that Saudi imports oil from Venezuela.

The section that says

> [@](#):
>
> Venezuela accounted for about 12 percent of U.S. crude oil imports in November, the latest figures available from the U.S. Energy Department. The 1.23 million barrels a day from Venezuela makes that country the U.S.'s fourth-biggest oil importer behind Canada, Saudi Arabia and Mexico.

is saying that the Us imports from Saudi , not that Saudi is importing from Venezuela.

That said, Saudi is a net crude oil exporter, but they (along with Iran and several other countries in the region) do import a fair bit of refined gasoline as they do not have sufficient refining capacity to cater to the growing populations.