AAA Kansas. David Dinell  

A weekend easing of retail gas prices in Wichita shows that there are many other factors involved in gas pricing than an outbreak of war in the Middle East, says Amanda Millard, spokeswoman for AAA Kansas.

According to AAA Kansas, at noon Monday, the average price for a gallon of regular gas in Wichita was $1.64, down 1 cent from Sunday and 5 cents from last week. Premium also has taken a drop and is down 5 cents, from $1.80 last week to $1.75 this week, despite even rougher conditions in the Iraq war.

"There are so many other variables than war," Millard says.

The main factor has been the increased oil supply from Venezuela, which had pumping problems that were non-war related. Other countries have continued to supply oil at pre-war levels, she says.

Also, there has been no panic buying in Wichita and other areas, Millard says. Millard says there is no reason for consumers and businesses to make panic purchases of gasoline.

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"That just starts a vicious cycle," she says.

<a href=www.waka.com>WAKA 03/24/2003 Amber W. Moody Are gas prices on the way down? In our search for the lowest price today, you'd better head to the Southern Boulevard, with Entec and Cowboys both at $1.54 for a gallon of regular unleaded. At the Entec in Prattville you'll pay $1.57 for a gallon of unleaded fuel. The Entec on the Northern Boulevard is a $1.58. Across town on the corner of Day Street and Airbase Boulevard the Citgo is charging a $1.56. According to the Lundberg survey of 8,000 gas stations, the average price for gas nationwide, including all grades and taxes, was about $1.76 a gallon on Friday. The Lundberg suvey finds the price of gas is leveling off now due to factors including the perception that the war will not substantially impact Iraqi oil production, Venezuela's comeback after the strike, and production increase by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and others.

AJC wire reports

MONTERREY, Mexcio -- Mexican brewer and bottler Femsa, soon to become the largest Coca-Cola bottler in Latin America, is looking at combining its beer and soft drink operations in various Latin American markets.

Femsa is in the midst of a previously announced $2.7 billion purchase of Panamerican Beverages of Miami.

Femsa's purchase of Panamco via subsidiary Coca-Cola Femsa, which operates in Mexico and Argentina, will give the Monterrey-based company a growth platform for Femsa's beer division in the markets of Panamco.

"Integration is a real possibility in some of the markets where we operate currently and where we hope to operate in the future once ther acquisition of Panamco is completed," Femsa's chairman Jose Antonio Fernandez said in a recent annual report.

Femsa said it clinched a deal with Coca-Cola to analyze "market by market" the degree of integration of its beer and soft-drinks businesses, which could include sharing administration and marketing expertise and joint distribution.

The strategy would allow Femsa to compete on a level playing field with Brazil's Ambev, the world's fifth-largest brewer and also a major regional bottler, which combines beer and soft drinks in its units in Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Venezuela.

Inside Mexico, joint distribution of beer and soft drinks is seen more tricky because of the fragementation of the retailers -- mom and pop stores are the main vendors.

But combining operations in Mexico would help Femsa face up to stiff competition from the No. 1 brewer Grupo Modelo.

Dow Jones NewsWires Tuesday March 25, 3:00 AM By Selina Williams OF DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

LONDON (Dow Jones)--Nigeria's worst ethnic violence in years sent shock waves through global oil markets Monday as three supermajors suspended production at their facilities in the Niger Delta and withdrew staff on safety fears.

The Nigerian subsidiaries of Royal Dutch/Shell Group (RD), ChevronTexaco Corp. (CVX) and TotalFinaElf (TOT) have halted production totaling 817,500 barrels a day - close to 40% of Nigeria's output of some 2 million b/d - as violence between rival communities spirals out of control ahead of presidential elections on April 19.

Shell and Chevron have also declared a force majeure - a formal notification to customers that they might not be able to lift their contracted crude when scheduled - on Bonny, Forcados and Escravos crude grades.

"It's a grave situation and the long-term implications of this are yet to be considered," said a Chevron spokesman speaking by telephone from Nigeria.

The loss of crude from the fifth-largest oil supplier to the U.S. comes at a time when global oil markets nervously eye the prospect of a prolonged war in Iraq that could have a more significant impact on supplies than initially anticipated.

It also comes as U.S. commercially held petroleum stocks are close to rock-bottom levels after a strike in Venezuela and as U.S. refiners are keen to get their hands on the light sweet Nigerian crudes that are so good for refining into gasoline ahead of the summer driving season.

The shutdowns will cost the companies and the country dear in lost revenues.

At a price of around $25 a barrel Nigeria's lost oil output is worth more than $20 million a day. That is a hefty amount for a country that receives some 90% of its foreign exchange earnings from oil exports.

But the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which has pledged to meet any shortfall in global oil supplies, played down disruptions to output by Nigeria, an OPEC member.

Events such as those in Nigeria "have happened in many countries, many times...this is a temporary event," said OPEC President Abdullah al-Attiyah in comments to Cable News Network earlier Monday.

"Nigerian oil will come back to the market," al-Attiyah added.

Technical Problems May Stall Restart Of Wells

But a prolonged shutdown of Nigeria's oil wells could make it difficult to restart them as pressure drops and other technical measures need to be taken to restart output, said David Fyfe, oil supply analyst at the Paris-based International Energy Agency.

"The longer they're off, the lower the pressure drops and the more work they'll need to get them up and running again," Fyfe said.

For the moment, none of the companies know when their production will return.

Shell and Chevron have evacuated several hundred staff, both local and expatriate, out of the afflicted region in the northern and southern swamps in the western Niger Delta.

Expatriate staff had the option to go home when they were evacuated and several took the opportunity, said spokesmen from the oil companies. Other personnel were at the end of their rotation period and were due to leave anyway.

Further disruptions could occur as Nigeria's two most powerful oil workers unions, the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers Union, or Nupeng, and the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, or Pengassan, threatened to withdraw members, fearing for their safety.

"We have told them (the companies) to evacuate our members from that place until there is peace," Nupeng General Secretary Joseph Akinlaja told Dow Jones Newswires by telephone.

Pengassan General Secretary Kenneth Narebor said the union would be forced to withdraw members if the violence continued. The violence showed no signs of abating Monday.

Government troops have been trying to restore order in the region, but with little effect.

According to the Associated Press, Ijaw militant activist leader Dan Ekpebide repeated threats Monday to blow up six ChevronTexaco installations - along with three Shell and two TotalFinaElf facilities that have been captured by militants - unless the Nigerian military halts its crackdown and pulls out.

Clashes between the Ijaws, the largest ethnic group in the Niger Delta, and minority Itsekiris over recent weeks have left scores dead and dozens injured.

When asked if there would be more shut ins in other locations or if violence could spread to the eastern Niger Delta, a regional Shell official in the area's oil town Warri said: "We don't know - it's clearly beyond our control."

Some analysts suggested that additional output from fields in the eastern Niger Delta could be brought on line to cover for the loss.

But the Energy Information Administration in the U.S. scotched that idea in a report Monday, when it estimated the country has no spare capacity left.

The near-$9 freefall in global oil prices in recent days on expectations of a swift end to conflict in Iraq has been stalled in part by the troubles in Nigeria, dealers said.

"Nigeria's becoming the main focus today," said one broker at London's International Petroleum Exchange where European Brent crude futures are traded.

"The fear is it could last for a while, and everyone's nervous after Venezuela," he added.

At 1850 GMT, IPE front-month May Brent was up $1.68 at $26.03/bbl.

-By Selina Williams, Dow Jones Newswires; +44 207 842 9262; selina.williams@dowjones.com (Vincent Nwanma in Lagos contributed to this report.)

<a href=www.sun-sentinel.com>Reuters Posted March 24 2003, 2:10 PM EST

CARACAS, Venezuela - A U.S. academic and expert on Venezuelan affairs was found dead under a road overpass in Caracas Monday and police said they were investigating her apparent suicide.

Janet Kelly, 56, who had lived and worked in Venezuela for more than 20 years, was a respected political analyst in the oil-rich country. Her articles appeared regularly in Venezuelan newspapers and her views were often quoted by foreign media covering the political conflict between leftist President Hugo Chavez and his foes.

Kelly's body was found on a road beneath an elevated highway in Caracas' eastern Altamira district Monday, police said. Her car was parked on the highway above and a note was found in her clothes giving her name, Venezuelan identity card number and the telephone numbers of her home and her son.

``It's presumed to be a suicide,'' Police chief inspector Ali Magdaleno Reyes told Reuters.

Philadelphia-born Kelly was a politics professor at Venezuela's IESA business school in Caracas and had recently bought the Spanish-speaking country's only English-language daily newspaper, The Daily Journal.