I should be more clear. I am referring to the recent spike in massive oil reserves that place Venezuela near the top of oil production. Though you are right about early oil exploration the US also had a very easy time of consolidating control over the early oil production no?
"After about twenty years from the installment of the first oil drill, Venezuela had become the largest oil exporter in the world and the second largest oil producer, after the
United States. Exportation of oil boomed from 1.9% to 91.2% between 1920 and 1935.[SUP]
[6][/SUP] When oil was discovered at the Maracaibo strike in 1922, Venezuela's dictator Juan Vicente Gómez allowed Americans to write Venezuela's petroleum law"
So why then did the US switch such an intense focus onto the Middle East from 1935 onwards? Why relax hard-power in the Latin Americas and focus instead in the Gulf of Arabia?
"In 1944, the Venezuelan government granted several new concessions encouraging the discovery of even more oil fields. This was mostly attributed to an increase in oil demand caused by an ongoing
World War II, and by 1945, Venezuela was producing close to 1 million barrels per day (160,000 m[SUP]3[/SUP]/d). Being an avid supplier of petroleum to the
Allies of World War II, Venezuela had increased its production by 42 percent from 1943 to 1944 alone.[SUP]
[10][/SUP] Even after the war, oil demand continued to rise due to the fact that there was an increase from twenty-six million to forty million cars in service in the United States from 1945 to 1950.[SUP]
[11][/SUP] By the mid-1950s, however, Middle Eastern countries had started contributing significant amounts of oil to the international petroleum market, and the United States had implemented oil import quotas. The world experienced an over-supply of oil, and prices plummeted."
This is an important point because Venezuela could no longer meet demand, and the Gulf no longer remained as a contested war zone (through WW1). Though Venz helped supply the allies in WW1 and WW2 as an isolated bastion, it also was considered so "safe" that oil in the Gulf was pursued for a few reasons:
1) Gulf oil was closer to the new front lines after WW1 and WW2
2) it strategically aided in cutting resources off from the emergent Soviet Empire, though the Soviets managed to secure massive gas and oil reserves in the central Asian states. None the less, they were effectively cut off from the former oil fields of another now defunct Anglo power.
3) and leading from the 1st point, the US seized the opportunity to pick up the British territories throughout the Mid East. Latin America was effectively now a secondary reserve and their own US land, a tertiary reserve. Latin American countries were sufficiently pacified, and where they stepped out of line the US exercised hard power to suppress Communism and resource re-allocation out of the region and onto the Russians! Latin America was fairly easy to subdue with enough crooked politicians, and even to this day!
4) for the most part the Mid East was also quite pliable, however the greater issue of Russia warranted the massive display of force.
5) Once communism fell, the Mid East began to turn on the US with the rise of Islamism, which serves to potentially expel the Americans and open the region to Chinese expansion. The same is true for Africa, and the US will allocated more direct military attention to Africa for the same reason.
6) Where wars have proven to weaken the US in the Gulf and the greater region, the US, also due to domestic and economic pressure has now turned to secondary and tertiary reserves as a back up supply for easy cheap oil. This coincides with Canadian and Venezuelan spikes in oil discovery and export....not to mention the most recent discover in 2012 of massive US reserves!!!
So in a general sense the US hasn't meddled in Venz for more complex reasons than simply: "no oil". That is an over simplification, but generally speaking Venz oil production, though once second largest in the world, was at a time of much reduced demand. US attention turned to larger reserves in regions that also strategically cut off their competitors. When faced with difficult battles for their traditional preferred oil sources, the US falls back on easy pickings. The trouble is Chavez disrupted those easy pickings! What with his Simon Bolivar like inspiration and his communist sympathies.
"Prior to 1938, there were three main factors that triggered the search for oil in Arabia:
- The discovery of oil by the Anglo-Persian Oil Company at Masjid-i-Sulaiman in the mountains of north-western Persia in 1908; but the consensus of geological opinion at the time was that there was no oil on the Arabian peninsula, although there were rumours of an oil seepage at Qatif on the eastern seaboard of al-Hasa, the eastern province of Arabia.
- The demand for oil during World War I. Throughout the war, it became obvious that oil was going to be a crucial resource in warfare for the foreseeable future.[SUP][1][/SUP] Examples that proved this were “General Galleini’s commandeering of the Paris taxi fleet to ferry soldiers to the front. This happened when the city seemed about to fall”.[SUP][3][/SUP] In addition to this, Germany’s shortage of oil supplies hindered their ability to produce aircraft, automobiles, and engines. The allies took advantage of this by producing thousands of vehicles to aid their war effort.[SUP][3][/SUP]
- The onset of the Great Depression. Prior to the depression, a major source of income for the ruler of Hijaz was the taxes paid by pilgrims on their way to the holy cities. After the depression hit, the number of pilgrimages per year fell from 100,000 to below 40,000.[SUP][1][/SUP] This hurt their economy greatly and they needed to find alternate sources of income. This caused King ‘Abd-al’-Aziz to get serious about the search for oil."
"In 1943, the name of the company in control in Saudi Arabia was changed to
Arabian American Oil Company (ARAMCO). In addition, numerous changes were made to the original concession after the striking of oil. In 1939, the first modification gave the Arabian American Oil Company a greater area to search for oil and extended the concession until 1999, increasing the original deal by six years. In return, ARAMCO agreed to provide the Saudi Arabian government with large amounts of free
kerosene and
gasoline, and to pay higher payments than originally stipulated"
The portions above highlight the amiability and strategic nature of the Gulf oil reserves. Especially for an army now required to keep the Soviets at bay.
As you know OPEC was not something the US was terribly happy about and though Venezuela was part of it, they also were not the main source of their concern, rather Mid East oil was far more problematic, especially with the Saud's increasingly buying up more of ARAMCO and offering less and less concessions to the US, coupled with the decline of the Soviets and the rise of Islamist movements.
Venz was relatively a small fish to fry in the OPEC / 70s oil crises when it came to the weakening hold on Mid East oil and strategic geo-political domination. Even now Venz is relatively small fish to fry in the US' attempt to cordon off China from the Mid East, Africa and Central Asia, except for the inconvenient 2006 spike in Venz oil and a president with Iranian, Chinese / Communist sympathies and an axe to grind with the US akin to Simon Bolivar to the Spanish.
If it were not for the massive new reserves found and the precarious position of the US in the Gulf, Chavez would have received even less attention.
But because the US' primary source of oil is in threat, and with Chavez, their secondary source of reserve oil was politically in jeopardy, then some soft power was used against Chavez.
If and when the US loses it's grip on the Mid East and China secures resources in Sudan, Nigeria, and Iran, the US will begin exercising hard power in Venz. Additionally they will begin imposing unpopular strategies upon their own population to tap into their now secondary (formerly tertiary) US native oil reserves! This internal soft-power has already begun.
Once again, Venz was relatively small fry...even after OPEC and the 70s oil crises:
That is now changing...
