When Venezuelan oil comes to the U.S.

By Hiroko Tabuchi

When Venezuelan oil is shipped to the United States, where does it go?

That simple question led me to the city of Pascagoula, Miss., home to Chevron’s flagship refinery on the Gulf of Mexico, where residents have long complained about pollution from the facility and other industrial sites along the coast. (Read my article on the community’s worries here.)

It’s one of a handful of sophisticated refineries in the country that have been processing Venezuela’s heavy crude oil into gasoline, diesel and jet fuel.

Operating under a special license, Chevron is the only American company that has continued drilling for oil in Venezuela in recent years, even while other oil giants left the country. As the U.S. government asserts control over Venezuelan oil production, Chevron is among the companies that could reap benefits most quickly.

Pascagoula residents now worry that more Venezuelan oil is headed their way, adding to their pollution worries.

The prospect is giving fresh momentum to an unusual proposal by people who live near Pascagoula, in a neighborhood called Cherokee Forest. They’re asking Chevron and the owners of other industrial facilities in the city to buy their homes so they can move away from the pollution entirely.

Under their buyout plan, their homes would be converted into a “blue-green buffer” of forests, waterways and wildlife habitats between the industrial corridor and remaining households, aiming to alleviate chronic flooding and helping to filter industrial emissions.