Anyone who has visited Boston has noticed the big CITGO sign that illuminates the city’s skyline. Few know, though, that Houston-based CITGO is owned by PDV America, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A., the national oil company of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela — “owned by and responsible to the people of Venezuela,” according to a recent advertisement.

In a program timed to coincide with the U.S. holiday of Thanksgiving, CITGO will provide heating oil to communities in the Boston area and New York City. The Boston program will provide up to 12 million gallons of heating oil with a 40% discount from market prices. CITGO values these discounts at nearly $10 million, a drop in the bucket for oil companies that recently reported billions of dollars in windfall profits following the disruption of oil suppliers and refinery shutdowns caused by this year’s hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico.

But it is a singular drop in the bucket. CITGO is thus far the only major oil company that responded to calls by various U.S. and State government officials to share some of their extraordinary profits with consumers affected by higher prices. CITGO also happens to be the only oil company owned by a country whose president has been targeted by a U.S. evangelist for removal from office by extraordinary means, so some see the offer of discounted oil as a political gesture. U.S. president George Bush and Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez recently played to the same audience at the Summit of the Americas where Bush’s presence was met by violent protests.

Does a possible political context diminish CITGO’s offer of discounted fuel oil? Not to the people benefiting from it, for sure, who likely won’t even hear anything about Venezuela. In the final analysis, it’s yet another positive symbol of globalization with one country, for whatever reason, reaching out to the people of another.