finance.news.com.au By Nigel Wilson March 13, 2003

BHP Billiton has committed $US327 million ($541 million) to speeding up its oil and gas discoveries off Trinidad and Tobago. The aggressive plan announced yesterday will have oil production beginning by the end of next year - only five years after the discovery well Angostura-1.

Three other exploration wells have encountered significant hydrocarbons.

BHP Billiton Petroleum and its partners - France's Total Fina Elf and Canada's Talisman Energy - are expected to spend $US726 million on the first phase of the integrated development.

The fast-tracking program will see Angostura oil being sold in the North American market well ahead of gas.

reuters.com Wed March 12, 2003 08:52 AM ET (Adds more detail from report)

WASHINGTON, March 12 (Reuters) - The U.S. trade deficit narrowed sharply in January to $41.1 billion, but was still the second-highest on record despite an upturn in exports, the government said on Wednesday.

Rising oil prices ahead of a possible war in Iraq helped keep the trade deficit at near-record levels, the Commerce Department data showed.

Oil prices in January were the highest since November 2000, with the increase from December was the largest month-to-month jump since September to October 1990, which followed Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in August of that year.

The 8.4 percent reduction in the trade gap from the record in December was the largest monthly drop in just over a year and exceeded market expectations. Analysts polled before the report pegged the January trade deficit at $42.8 billion.

In a possible sign of weakening U.S. demand, imports fell 2.0 percent to $123.0 billion, but still were high by historical standards.

Exports rose 1.6 percent to $81.9 billion, led by higher shipments of capital and consumer goods.

U.S. imports from Venezuela, a major oil producer, in January fell to their lowest level since February 1989, as a general strike crippled that country's oil exports.

The U.S. trade deficit with China narrowed fractionally to $9.4 billion in January, while the monthly trade gap with the 15 member states of the European Union dropped by nearly 30 percent to $6.5 billion.

Tensions between the United States and two key European Union members, France and Germany, have rattled companies on both sides of the Atlantic, which fear the foreign policy disagreement could spill over into the trade arena.

Jean-Francois Boittin, economic counselor at the French Embassy, said he saw little chance any European country would express its displeasure by blocking imports of U.S. goods.

"I think cooler heads will prevail," Boittin told Reuters in an interview.

www.vheadline.com Posted: Wednesday, March 12, 2003 By: Charles Hardy

VHeadline.com commentarist Charles Hardy writes: "Two men looked out of prison bars. One saw dirt. The other saw stars" -- I wish I could tell you the name of the genius who wrote those words. In very few phrases the person wrote a whole book, and I have carried the book with me for decades although I never saw the name of the author.

The words came to mind the past week as I observed the pessimistic newspaper coverage of Carnival in Venezuela. Throughout Latin America the days before Ash Wednesday are days of fun and celebration ... however the Venezuelan press' forecast for this year was Gloom and Doom!

It started by saying that, because of the terrible situation in the country (according to them) very few people would be traveling and the beaches would be empty.

That news came as a surprise to the people who were already on their way, or who were trying to find a parking place near the coast, or lying on the beach reading the newspaper to protect their eyes from the sun.

It was similar to a weather forecaster predicting a storm and the sun shines all day ... a good TV forecaster would simply joke the next day and say "Well, I can't be right all the time."

To expect such a reaction from the press here in Venezuela would be asking for too much. Instead they went into Gloom & Doom, Stage 2 ... the people filling the downtown streets with their children dressed in costumes and participating in the traditional 'Miss Carnival' pageants weren't having fun because they didn't have enough money to buy their costumes this year ... they had to make them themselves!

...and the people filling the beaches were not happy either, because they brought food with them from home instead of buying it from vendors on the beach.

The smiling faces and suntanned bodies that were shown in the newspapers didn't go along with the headlines, but what did it matter.

This is the press in Venezuela that doesn't have time to notice that there is still a sun in the sky and the stars do come out at night.

One good thing did happen. Carlos Ortega of the CTV and Coordinadora (anti-) Democratica were in hiding.

You might recall that he and his group asked children not to celebrate Christmas last year. and then staged a party for the little ones on December 28 ... the day when the Catholic Church commemorates the killing of the children by Herod.

• If Ortega had still been making public statements he probably would have urged people to hold off celebrating Carnival, too ... until Good Friday!

But, returning to the home-made costumes, my brother and sister-in-law had a family of seven children and always made their own Halloween costumes. When my brother died, one of his children talked at the funeral about the unique costumes they always had. One was a baked potato (a burlap bag covered with aluminum foil), two became a pair of dice (boxes covered with white paper with big black spots), and a third was a nun (with a black garbage bag for a veil).

Who says that to be happy everyone should dress as Spiderman, Superman or Barbie?

And the need to travel?

In the barrio where I lived, very few people traveled, but we always celebrated in a variety of ways. One of my most memorable recollections was the day I was carried the distance of a city block and dropped in a pit of mud, grease and whatever else that would make me totally black ... by the end of the day, a good part of the neighborhood looked the same way I did.

Taking your own food to the beach?

That has been a custom of most families for ages ... the food is better and you know how it has been prepared.

When the week was all over, Ultimas Noticias said that bus travel was down only about fifteen percent ... not bad, for all that the country has been through.

But what about the level of happiness and celebration?

Was it up or was it down?

Everyone I talked to had a nice Carnival, but that doesn't prove anything.

The newspapers have no way of judging that either, but you can guess what they would like to have you believe: In Venezuela this Carnival, there was no sun, no stars.

Having "adequately" reported on that ... they can now start working on their next project: Gloom & Doom, Stage 3.

Charlie A native of Cheyenne, Wyoming (USA), VHeadline.com columnist Charles Hardy has many years experience  as an international correspondent in Venezuela. You may email him at: hardyce2@yahoo.com

www.theledger.com Published Wednesday, March 12, 2003 By Michael Sasso The Ledger michael.sasso@theledger.com

Now hovering about $1.70 a gallon, gas prices have room to go up even further, a leading oil industry analyst said. On Tuesday, eight Polk County gas stations were selling regular unleaded for $1.69 to $1.76 per gallon. That's up about a nickel per gallon over prices at the same stations last month. Local prices appear in line with the Florida and national averages for regular unleaded, both of which are $1.70, according to AAA Auto Club South. Industry analysts have attributed the high prices to short supplies of oil, partly because of labor strikes in Venezuela, a leading source of American oil. And with war looming, the oil industry is afraid the oil supply will fall further. So it is raising its prices now in anticipation of higher costs in the future. Last week, a barrel of oil on the futures market rose to more than $39. Essentially, that's the price buyers were willing to pay last week for oil at some set point in the future. In the past few days, that price has dropped to about $36 a barrel, but it may rise again and even eclipse last week's peak, said Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst for the Oil Price Information Service, which studies the industry. Already, supplies of oil are low, while consumer demand has stayed high. Now the summer driving season -- when demand is the highest -- is approaching, Kloza said. "Despite all the ink and all the Sturm und Drang (German for storm and stress) among consumers complaining about prices, the one thing that is consistent and scary is that demand continues to be phenomenal," Kloza said. The high gas prices have felled at least one local gas station. George Weaver of Weaver and Son Service Center in Bartow is considering turning off his gas pumps next month. Instead of selling gas, he'll just operate his repair shop, he said. Right now Weaver is paying his gas distributor $1.73 per gallon for regular unleaded -- more than some stations are selling regular unleaded at retail. He's selling it to consumers for $1.81 per gallon, not much of a profit, he said.

Last modified: March 12. 2003 8:10AM

www.theage.com.au March 13 2003 By Neela Banerjee Vienna

The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries decided at its meeting in Vienna, Austria, to maintain oil output at current levels, indicating it could do little else to cope with the uncertain impact a possible war in Iraq could have on supplies from the Persian Gulf and global demand.

At its last meeting in January, OPEC raised production levels to 24.5 million barrels a day. But industry analysts think OPEC is producing more than that, with nearly all countries, except for Saudi Arabia, pumping at maximum capacity to calm a market shaken the past few months by export shortages from Venezuela and jitters over war.

OPEC president Abdullah bin Hamad al Attiyah, of Qatar, acknowledged that although the 10 voting OPEC members were taking a wait-and-see approach, the group was prepared to act quickly to produce even more oil within weeks to prevent supply shortfalls and steep jumps in prices.

"We will closely monitor market developments," Mr Abdullah said at a news conference after the formal meeting on Tuesday, "and take prompt and appropriate action as and when the need arises."

OPEC does not disclose its actual production, and Mr Abdullah and others would say only that the group's excess production capacity is 2 million to 4 million barrels a day above the official quota. It is unclear how much of that has already been tapped, though most industry analysts estimated that perhaps only a million barrels a day of spare capacity remained within OPEC, nearly all of it in Saudi Arabia.

-New York Times