www.knoxnews.com By CHRISTOPHER TOOTHAKER, Associated Press January 25, 2003

CARACAS, Venezuela - Oil production is slowly picking up in Venezuela, a sign President Hugo Chavez may be gaining in his efforts to break a nearly 2-month-old strike.

But Chavez still has a long way to go to overcome the strike's devastating effects on the economy, already in recession when the walkout began Dec. 2 with the goal of ousting his left-wing, populist regime.

Dissident executives at the state oil monopoly Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. said production was 855,000 barrels of crude on Friday, up from 812,000 barrels a day earlier. State oil company President Ali Rodriguez insists crude production has surpassed 1 million barrels per day.

Venezuela, the world's fifth-largest oil exporter and a major U.S. supplier, produced 3 million barrels a day before the strike. At one point in December, production slipped to as low as 150,000 barrels per day.

It remains to be seen whether exports, averaging around 450,000 barrels a day, will follow suit. If oil isn't shipped, inventories pile up and no space remains for freshly produced oil.

Many tanker pilots returned to their jobs this week, but foreign shippers remain reluctant to use Venezuelan ports because regular docking and support personnel haven't abandoned the strike.

Ed Sillierre, vice president of risk management at Energy Merchant LLC in New York, called the decision by pilots "the first chink in the armor."

Persuading pilots to return to work was "a very smart strategic move on Chavez's part. It really drove the stake into the heart of the opposition movement," Sillierre said.

"Can he ride this thing out? Now I would say yes," he added.

The state oil monopoly employs about 40,000 people. Rodriguez told the state news agency Venpres on Thursday that most oil workers and half the company's administrators have abandoned the strike. But Fedepetrol, the largest oil workers union, insisted 17,000 of its 20,000 workers haven't returned to work.

Chavez may be making headway in his push to revive oil production, but that doesn't mean domestic fuel shortages will return to normal anytime soon. Venezuela only refines a fraction of its crude oil for domestic consumption, and the few refineries used for that purpose are still far from full capacity.

"Domestic consumption will be an issue for a long time," Sillierre said. If the strike were to end immediately, "Venezuela would be importing gasoline easily through March, quite possibly into the summer," he said.

Chavez must also face the effects of damage already done to the nation's oil-dependent economy. Almost half of Venezuela's income, 80 percent of export earnings and roughly a third of the country's $100 billion gross domestic product come from oil exports.

The government has acknowledged losing more than $4 billion in income so far.

Finance Minister Tobias Nobrega announced a $1.5 billion cut this week in Venezuela's $25 billion budget. Cash-strapped opposition governors and mayors claim they may not be able to pay public employees at the end of the month.

The Santander Central Hispano investment bank has warned that Venezuela's economy could contract as much as 40 percent in the first quarter of 2003 if the crisis isn't resolved soon. The economy shrank by an estimated 8 percent in 2002. Unemployment is 17 percent and inflation is 30 percent.

www.chron.com Jan. 24, 2003, 10:42PM Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle News Services

To keep oil flowing to U.S. refineries and consumers at the gasoline pump, the Bush administration will likely approve requests from energy companies to postpone scheduled deliveries of crude owed to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, Energy Department officials said on Friday.

The department has been talking with oil companies about delaying up to 4.4 million barrels of crude to the stockpile and will likely approve requests from firms that want to defer March shipments, the officials said.

An announcement on delaying any March crude deliveries could come as early as next week.

In New York Friday, crude oil futures rallied above $33 a barrel amid fears that Saddam Hussein may destroy Iraqi oil fields in the event of a U.S.-led attack.

Concern about Iraqi oil supplies comes at a time when Venezuela's crude remains largely off the market. A strike that began in early December has severely disrupted Venezuela's oil industry.

Also Friday, OPEC said it could do no more to rein in runaway world oil prices. Alvaro Silva, secretary-general of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, said the group already was pumping enough but could not counter the impact of the threat of war on oil prices.

On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude for March delivery jumped $1.03 to $33.28 a barrel.

February heating oil rose 3.49 cents to close at 95.02 cents a gallon. February gasoline ended at 92.25 cents a gallon, up 2.44 cents.

In London, March Brent rose 77 cents to close at $30.49 a barrel.

February natural gas rose 6.6 cents to $5.524 per thousand cubic feet in New York trading.

www.samoaobserver.ws By Terry Tavita 23 January 2003

A warning on defective tires issued by the Department of Trade, Commerce and Industry has been questioned by a local tire dealer. “How can you warn consumers on buying new wheels when many cars here are running on bald tires?” he asked.

TCI yesterday issued a press release signed by the Secretary, warning consumers not to purchase tire models Bridgestone/ Firestone R4S, R4SII and A/T Tires. The reason given is that the US.

Traffic and Safety Administration (NHTSA) is investigating the compatibility of these tires.

It goes further to say that the models have been banned in Saudi Arabia, and is been looked at in Venezuela, Mexico and South Africa.

The tire dealer pointed out that cars in these countries travel at 200 km per hour on the highway, “you can’t compare that to the slow traffic in Samoa.”

“Since cars travel so fast there, any slight defect is looked at carefully. “You put out public notices based on conditions here, not because you read something on the Internet that says so,” said the dealer.

“Most dealers in Samoa import second hand tires from mainly Hawaii and California which are still in good condition, compatible with our roads and driving conditions.”

“The prices are also very affordable for car owners.”

The average second hand tire, he said, costs $70. A new tire of the models in question is sold by a local motor company at $250-$500 depending on the size.

“If TCI is serious about fair trading, then that is a fair trade.

“I’m sure those people at TCI have better work to do than waste time on such mundane issues,” he concluded.

By Terry Tavita 23 January 2003

A warning on defective tires issued by the Department of Trade, Commerce and Industry has been questioned by a local tire dealer. “How can you warn consumers on buying new wheels when many cars here are running on bald tires?” he asked.

TCI yesterday issued a press release signed by the Secretary, warning consumers not to purchase tire models Bridgestone/ Firestone R4S, R4SII and A/T Tires. The reason given is that the US.

Traffic and Safety Administration (NHTSA) is investigating the compatibility of these tires.

It goes further to say that the models have been banned in Saudi Arabia, and is been looked at in Venezuela, Mexico and South Africa.

The tire dealer pointed out that cars in these countries travel at 200 km per hour on the highway, “you can’t compare that to the slow traffic in Samoa.”

“Since cars travel so fast there, any slight defect is looked at carefully. “You put out public notices based on conditions here, not because you read something on the Internet that says so,” said the dealer.

“Most dealers in Samoa import second hand tires from mainly Hawaii and California which are still in good condition, compatible with our roads and driving conditions.”

“The prices are also very affordable for car owners.”

The average second hand tire, he said, costs $70. A new tire of the models in question is sold by a local motor company at $250-$500 depending on the size.

“If TCI is serious about fair trading, then that is a fair trade.

“I’m sure those people at TCI have better work to do than waste time on such mundane issues,” he concluded.

www.chinapost.com.tw 2003/1/25 DAVOS, Switzerland, Agencies

The secretary general of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said on Friday he believed the world was not on the verge of an oil crisis but the threat of a U.S.-led war on Iraq could change that.

"We are in a transitory situation and not on the edge of an oil crisis," Alvaro Silva-Calderon told the World Economic Forum in the Swiss ski resort of Davos.

Asked what would happen to global oil prices if the United States launched military strikes against Iraq, Silva-Calderon said: "We don't know. It's out of our control."

OPEC agreed on Jan. 12 to increase oil production by 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd) in a bid to curb price surges triggered by a strike in Venezuela and the threat of war on Iraq, which has the second biggest known oil reserves in the world after Saudi Arabia.

The move will raise the oil cartel's output to 24.5 million bpd from 23 million bpd starting on Feb. 1. But the promised output hike so far has failed to contain prices, which OPEC aims to keep within a price band of between US$22 and US$28 a barrel.

The price of benchmark Brent North Sea crude oil for March delivery stood at US$29.80 per barrel in midday trading on Tuesday. In New York, light sweet crude March-dated contracts closed down 60 cents at US$31.90 per barrel.

Oil prices could soar further if there is a war in the near term because demand for heating is still high in the wintry northern hemisphere, the chief executive of oil giant Saudi Aramco, Abdallah Jum'ah, told the forum of political and business leaders in Davos.

Former Saudi oil minister Sheikh Ahmad Zaki Yamani said on Tuesday the price of crude could more than triple to 100 dollars a barrel if Iraq set oilfields ablaze in the event of a U.S.-led war.

And Algerian Oil Minister Chakib Khelil warned on Wednesday OPEC would not be able to compensate an expected shortfall of supplies of around five million bpd in case of war on Iraq, because only two of the oil cartel's members °X Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) °X had genuine excess production capacity.

Jum'ah told the Davos forum that Saudi Arabia would "continue to have 1.5 to 2 million barrels per day in extra capacity" that it could put on the market "to temper prices."

OPEC has not yet decided whether to take further action to curb prices when it holds its next scheduled meeting on March 11, with the cartel's president saying "all options are open."