VENEZUELA

Can it improve relations with the United States and develop its Orinoco oil fields?

Harnessing vast crude reserves primarily in the northwestern Maracaibo region, Venezuela is among the world's top oil producers, with about half of its oil exports going to the United States as of 2010, despite tension between the two countries. Although we tend to think of Venezuela as a South American country, "in reality, it's a Caribbean country," Kaplan explains, considering that most of its 29 million people are concentrated along the northern coast. As a result, Venezuela has few options but to ship its crude across the Caribbean Sea, up toward the Gulf of Mexico, and ultimately to the United States. Kaplan predicts U.S.-Venezuela relations will gradually improve once cancer-ridden President Hugo Chávez expires. In turn, Venezuela might be able to increase exports to the United States, and also might get U.S. help to tap into heavy crude deposits in the Orinoco oil sands, which require more advanced and expensive drilling techniques.

AMON SAHMKOW/AFP/Getty Images

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