A CITGO boycott is not likely to accomplish much beyond the symbolic. Many different oil companies buy crude oil from Venezuela, so even Americans who shun CITGO brand gasoline have no guarantee that they aren't still sending their money to that country. And although CITGO may be owned by Petróleos de Venezuela, the national oil company of Venezuela, it is a formerly American company which is still headquartered in the U.S. (in Houston, Texas). CITGO employs 4,000 people in the USA and supplies 14,000 independent retailers with gasoline and other petroleum products — Americans with no substantive connection to Venezuela who would be economically harmed by such an action. CITGO also provides free or discounted heating oil to low-income communities and tribal reservations within the United States. And, of course, in today's oil market CITGO could likely find alternative buyers for its products far more easily than the U.S. could make up the shortfall created by a cut-off of Venezuelan oil.
The global and fungible nature of the world oil market doesn't really provide consumers with many effective opportunities to influence political issues through their buying patterns.
Petro Express is a privately-owned chain of convenience stores owned by The Pantry, Inc., which is headquartered in Sanford, North Carolina. It is not owned by CITGO or the Venezuela government. Although Petro Express outlets did once sell CITGO gasoline, the company stated in October 2006 that the chain would be phasing out sales of that brand by 2007. Soon after The Pantry's acquisition of Petro Express in 2007, the new parent company announced that gasoline sales at those outlets would be converted to Chevron's Texaco brand.
It is not uncommon for independent stations and chains to switch fuel suppliers from time to time. Occurrences of independents' dropping CITGO in favor of other suppliers are often misinterpreted by the public as attempts on CITGO's part to "switch names" in order to fool consumers into continuing to purchase CITGO gasoline.
According to news reports, Russia's Izhevsk Mechanical Plant (IMP) has already manufactured and supplied about 100,000 AK-103 assault rifles to Venezuela under an earlier contract, and they have also signed a contract for two arms plants in Venezuela (one to produce AK-103a and the other to produce 7.62-mm ammunition for those rifles), with construction to begin at the end of 2007 and be completed by 2010.
Also in 2007, Venezuela and Iran signed a $4 billion deal to develop Ayacucho 7, a block of the lucrative Orinoco Reserve in Venezuela which is believed to hold more than 30 billion barrels of oil. Under the deal, Iran will build four oil rigs off the shore of Venezuela by the end of the year.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/gasoline/citgo.asphttp://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/p/petroexpress.htm