www.vheadline.com Posted: Wednesday, March 12, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Proyecto Venezuela (PV) leader Henrique Salas Romer has gone public announcing a cooling-off with opposition Coordinadora Democratica (CD).

“There are differences of style … the CD should stop the war of words with President Chavez Frias … we must try to win over his supporters.”

The former (1998) presidential candidate accuses the “old guard” in Accion Democratica (AD) and the Christian Socialist (COPEI) party of using the opposition as a Trojan Horse to further their own political agendae.

In a biting analysis, Salas Romer claims that the opposition’s popularity has taken a dive down after the decision to unite and fight the President in hand to hand combat.

www.thoroughbredtimes.com Posted: 3/12/2003 4:22:00 PM ET

Venezuelan Group 1 winner My Own Business (Ven), a son of the Danzig stallion Voyageur, was elected Venezuela’s 2002 Horse of the Year and champion older horse by the Venezuelan Turf Journalists Association, presenters of the Premios Burlesco, the equivalent of the Eclipse Awards.

My Own Business, who also was Venezuela’s 2000 Horse of the Year, has 32 victories over 42 career starts in his native country, Puerto Rico, and the United States, and has amassed $735,427 in earnings. Among his victories last season were the Clasico Presidente de la Republica (Ven-G1) and Copa de Oro (Ven-G1), both at La Rinconada racecourse.

Owned by Rocco Sebastiani and Hugo Albarran´s Stud Fantasia, My Own Business was bred by Julio Pazo’s Haras Vista Hermosa.

Out of the winning Verbatim mare Word Medley, My Own Business is a half brother to stakes winner Gran Corredor. Notable members of his immediate family include 1983 Florida Derby (G1) winner Croeso and multiple Grade 3 winner and sire Ide.—Michael Burns and Diego Mitagstein

newsobserver.com By BRUCE STANLEY, AP BUSINESS WRITER

VIENNA, Austria (AP) - A surge in world oil output last month has left producer countries with too little spare capacity to fully offset a wartime halt in supplies from Iraq, the International Energy Agency warned Wednesday.

Output increased 2.5 percent worldwide in February and oil inventories tightened in major importing nations, the agency said. Fears of a U.S.-led attack on Iraq propelled prices to their highest levels since the 1991 Persian Gulf War. International oil markets are "running on empty" as war clouds gather again in the Gulf, the agency said in its monthly oil market report.

"A further supply disruption would tax a system operating at close to capacity," the report said.

The only reliable cushion for consumers may be the 4 billion barrels in strategic stocks of crude that IEA members have amassed for use in an emergency, it added.

The agency issued its grim assessment a day after the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries decided to leave its oil production quotas unchanged at 24.5 million barrels a day. OPEC, which pumps about a third of the world's crude, made clear that it would boost its output to try to cover any shortfall arising from a war.

The IEA is the energy watchdog of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a group of the world's wealthiest oil-importing countries.

While highlighting many causes for concern in oil markets, the IEA expects that the end of winter - the peak season for heating oil sales - will reduce demand for crude by about 1.6 million barrels a day. Such a decrease would in itself offset a loss of Iraq's current exports under the U.N. oil-for-food program, the report said.

The IEA acknowledged efforts by OPEC and independent producers to put additional crude on the market. World production rose in February by 1.96 million barrels a day to 79.41 million barrels, and OPEC contributed more than three-fourths of the increase, the agency said.

OPEC member Venezuela boosted its daily production by 850,000 barrels as its oil industry continued to recover from a crippling strike. Saudi Arabia's output grew by 330,000 barrels a day, and of OPEC's 11 members, only Iraq and Indonesia failed to pump at higher levels last month, the report said.

"If the IEA's numbers for OPEC production in February are correct, there's a lot of oil on the water that should be hitting inventories in a few weeks. That's the good news for consumers," said Adam Sieminski, an oil price strategist at Deutsche Bank in London.

Sieminski agreed that OPEC's limited amount of spare capacity could be a problem if markets suffer a serious supply disruption. Most producers are pumping all they can, and only Saudi Arabia - with the world's biggest oil reserves - has significant room to pump more.

OPEC claims to have 2 million to 4 million barrels in additional production capacity. The IEA argued that OPEC's "effective spare capacity" - the additional crude it could produce on short notice - was much smaller.

The agency said OPEC's effective spare capacity fell last month to 1.72 million barrels a day from 2.37 million barrels in January, as the cartel produced more oil to make up for the outage from Venezuela. With OPEC increasing production to cash in on current high prices, this extra capacity has probably diminished in March to fewer than 1 million barrels a day, the report said.

It warned that OPEC would therefore be unable to quickly cover a war-induced shortfall from Iraq, which produced 2.49 million barrels a day in February. If U.S.-led forces attacked Iraq during the second half of March, the IEA suggested that it would be May before OPEC could offset the shortfall.

U.S. spot prices for light, sweet crude climbed by an average of 8.4 percent in February to $35.75 a barrel, while futures prices peaked at $39.99 on Feb. 27. The average spot price of North Sea Brent, the European benchmark crude, rose by 4.3 percent to $32.67, the report said.

Projected oil demand for 2003 is 78.01 million barrels a day. A cold winter and greater industrial use of crude in Asia and North America kept demand strong in January, and seasonal demand should fall by 1.6 million barrels a day in the spring, the IEA said.

"I think that's a vast underestimate," said Kevin Norrish, head of commodities research at Barclays Capital. He argued that high crude prices are discouraging consumption and slowing economic growth.

"The risk has got to be that we'll see a very, very steep fall in demand in the second quarter," Norrish said, echoing OPEC's fears of a possible drop in prices if Iraqi exports resume quickly after a war.

On Wednesday, April contracts of U.S. light, sweet crude rose $1.00 to $37.72 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. On the International Petroleum Exchange in London, April Brent rose 51 cents to $33.80 a barrel.

money.cnn.com March 12, 2003: 4:54 PM EST

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices rose sharply Wednesday after weekly government and industry inventory data showed U.S. crude and gasoline supplies fell last week, as war with Iraq loomed.

Around 2:45 p.m. ET, light crude oil for April delivery was up $1.11 at $37.83 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Oil prices set a record high of $41.15 a barrel during the 1990-91 Gulf crisis.

Earlier in London, April Brent crude rose 62 cents to $33.91 a barrel.

U.S. crude oil stocks fell 3.8 million barrels in the week to March 7, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in its weekly report released at 10:30 a.m. ET.

Distillate stocks were up 1.8 million barrels, and gasoline inventories fell 4.1 million barrels, the EIA said.

The industry group American Petroleum Institute (API) said crude stocks fell 1.7 million barrels, distillate stocks dipped 129,000 barrels and gasoline stocks dropped 4.88 million barrels.

Analysts polled by Reuters expected U.S. crude stocks for the week to March 7 to have risen by about a million barrels while they expected gasoline stocks to have declined 1.7 million barrels. Distillates were forecast to have dwindled by 2.0 million barrels.

"Imports were down and makes dubious Venezuela's claims of a return to output normalcy," said John Kilduff, senior vice president and analyst for Fimat USA. "There was some relief on the distillate side."

Crude imports were down 1.06 million barrels, and product imports were off 652,000 barrels in the week to last Friday, according to the DOE report. API also said that imports of crude oil and refined products fell last week.

Heating oil for April delivery was 0.5 cents higher at $1.0352 a gallon, while gasoline for April delivery was 1.52 cents higher at $1.1139 a gallon, after ending overnight trade down 0.77 cent. Click here to go to CNN/Money's commodity page

The bullish gasoline and crude statistics were pushing prices up after Tuesday's losses on forecasts for warm weather, traders said.

Prices also fell Tuesday after OPEC ministers meeting in Vienna decided to keep the cartel production stable while pledging to ramp up production to meet any supply disruption.

Market jitters over a possible war in Iraq remained, though a possible extension of the deadline for Iraq to comply with U.N. disarmament demands was creating more uncertainty.

Britain said Wednesday that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein must declare on television that he will give up hidden weapons of mass destruction as one of six conditions to avoid war.

Foreign Office minister Mike O'Brien said the conditions, which Britain wants to attach to a draft second resolution on Iraq, were being discussed with fellow U.N. Security Council members as negotiations reached an end game. Related stories U.S. ready to release oil reserves Gas prices near record high Oil prices retreat

Spare OPEC oil production capacity has been squeezed to just half the volume of Iraq's exports ahead of the possible conflict interrupting exports, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said Wednesday.

In its monthly Oil Market Report, the IEA said that output increases in the past two months had left effective spare capacity in OPEC now of just 900,000 barrels per day.

Iraqi exports have been running at 1.7 million barrels a day over the past month and, in addition, Kuwait has said it may need to suspend as much as 700,000 barrels per day as a safety precaution if war breaks out in its neighbor.  

www.bloomberg.com Fri, 14 Mar 2003, 10:22am EDT By Morag MacKinnon

Sydney, March 14 (Bloomberg) -- Australian bonds tumbled, sending yields to a two-month high, after the U.S. signaled it may extend diplomatic efforts to disarm Iraq. Gains in stock futures crimped demand for the safety of government debt.

President George W. Bush is open to extending into next week diplomatic efforts and he seeks a diplomatic solution'' to the confrontation with Iraq, his top aides said. Bush is willing to go the extra mile for diplomacy'' and debate on the Iraq resolution at the United Nations may go into next week, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.

``The more conciliatory tone we are seeing from the White House has encouraged people to diminish their expectations for war which is seeing equities bid and bonds sold,'' said Greg McKenna, a market strategist at National Australia Bank Ltd.

The 6.5 percent bond maturing in May 2013 fell 1.249, or A$12.49 per A$1,000 amount, to 108.480 at 8:43 a.m. in Sydney. Its yield rose 15 basis points to 5.4 percent, its highest since Jan. 16. The yield on the 7.5 percent bond maturing in July 2005 rose 14 basis points to 4.62 percent. A basis point is 0.01 percentagepoint.

The futures contract for Australia's S&P/ASX 200 stock index due in March jumped 1.7 percent.

Speculation about a U.S.-led attack on Iraq has spurred demand for the safest securities while Australia's benchmark S&P/ASX 200 stock index has dropped 10.4 percent this year.

The Australian dollar bought 59.46 U.S. cents compared with 59.40 U.S. cents in late Asian trading. The currency has lost 3 percent of its value this week.

``We've had the clean out that we needed,'' said McKenna, who forecasts the currency will extend its 6 percent gain this year and rise as high as 65 U.S. cents by June. He recommends buying the currency when it dips to around 59 U.S. cents.