This is a guest post by Meg Hamill, a freelance writer who also works at the environmental non-profit, LandPaths, in Sonoma County California.

[social_buttons]Venezuela is currently one of world’s largest oil producers. In an ongoing effort to reduce their dependency on oil exports to the United States, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has signed a deal with China that could easily triple the amount of oil exported to that country by 2012. That would bring their oil exports to China up to one million barrels a day. Recognizing the thirst for oil in a gigantic, developing country such as China, Chavez told the media: “While the world enters an energy crisis, we are investing.”

Currently the Unites States still buys about half of the total oil exported from Venezuela.

Chavez is now off to Russia, on his 3rd visit to the country in two months. It is thought that Chavez is seeking to strengthen energy alliances in Russia as well.

And Chavez’ evolving relationship with Russia doesn’t stop there. The BBC states that in the past few years, Venezueala has signed arms deals with Russia that equal 4 billion dollars. In fact just last week, Russia sent a navy squadron to Venezuala for “joint manuevers.” The Associated Press called the move: “an unprecedented deployment of Russian military power to the Western Hemisphere since the Cold War and an obvious snub to Washington.”

Photo Credit: Wikepedia Commons under Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Brazil