<a href=ipsnews.net>Mario Osava*

RIO DE JANEIRO, Mar 30 (IPS) - Another weekend of protests in Latin America against the war on Iraq, marked by music and creative slogans, culminated Sunday with a rally in the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo, where world-renowned musician and Brazilian Culture Minister Gilberto Gil sang several protest songs. Between 10,000 and 30,000 people, according to press reports or the organisers, took part in the demonstration convened by the governing Workers' Party (PT). Many of those present sang along with Gil to ''Peace'', one of his most famous songs. Two other singers, Supla and Chico Cesar, performed in the peace rally, which was called by a committee that groups more than 100 social organisations and political parties, and by the government of Sao Paulo, Brazil's biggest city. Gil said Brazilians carried the urge to defend peace ''in their genes,'' and expressed his hope that the protests being held around the world would end up eroding the U.S. population's support for the war. ''The participation of artists in the anti-war demonstrations is important, because music symbolises the struggle for peace,'' said the president of the PT, former parliamentary deputy José Genoino. In Mexico, the ''Loveparade'' peace rally, which ended in an enormous dance, began late Saturday and stretched to seven in the morning on Sunday, drawing around 5,000 young people -- very few compared to the projections of the organisers, who hoped for as many as 200,000. Protesters chanted and carried placards against the British-U.S. invasion of Iraq, which has been going on for 10 days. In addition, around 100 graffiti artists covered 300 metres of wall space on a Mexico City school with anti-war designs. Music also formed part of the anti-war events in Buenos Aires, but with a more formal tone: a performance in the historical Colon Theatre in which a children's choir and dancers from a school performed along with popular musicians. Humour and irreverence also played a role in the events organised this weekend by the region's peace movement. In a protest held Saturday in Caracas, alongside placards with the usual anti-war slogans ''No War'' and ''No Blood for Oil'' appeared a poster with the image of U.S. President George W. Bush as a vampire sinking his fangs into oil-rich Iraq and Venezuela. In Rio de Janeiro, the ''Diabush'' (for ''diablo'' or devil), a man sporting a red devil's suit and a mask of the U.S. president's face, carried a sign stating ''I am the one in charge in the world.'' Next to him, a protester wearing a mask of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein carried a fake bomb that read ''No More Bombs.'' The two characters stood out among the roughly 300 people who marched along the famous Ipanema beach in Rio de Janeiro, and later danced to the music of the afro-Brazilian group Sons of Gandhi. ''The Diabush shows where we are headed if Bush's policies continue: to hell,'' said Deputy Carlos Minc, who headed the protest along with his fellow congressman Fernando Gabeira. Both legislators are members of the PT as well as prominent environmentalists. ''Our War is Against Hunger'' and ''Make Love, Not War'' read banners carried by the demonstrators. Organisations of homosexuals, transvestites and transsexuals were represented in the event, and have organised their own anti-war demonstrations in several Brazilian cities. The colourful clothing and costumes worn by members of sexual minorities also brightened up a peace march that took place in downtown Santiago on Saturday, drawing between 1,500 and 2,000 people who urged President Ricardo Lagos to back a call for the United Nations General Assembly to hold a special session to ''adopt moral sanctions against Bush.'' One sign carried by the protesters read ''Thanks, Ambassador Vega'', an allusion to Chile's representative on the UN Commission on Human Rights, which is holding its annual meetings through Apr. 25 in Geneva, Switzerland. Last week, Vega disobeyed instructions from his government to vote against a motion for the Commission to discuss the humanitarian and human rights situation in Iraq. Instead, the diplomat abstained. Recalled to Chile, he resigned Saturday before the Foreign Ministry could remove him. The proposal to debate the situation in Iraq failed to pass because a majority of the 53 countries represented on the Commission adhered to the argument that the issue fell within the sphere of the UN Security Council. There have also been calls in Latin America to join a new global movement to boycott U.S. products, brands and companies. McDonald's franchises were occupied by nearly 150 student protesters from the movement ''No Pasarán'' in the Argentine capital, and targetted by stone-throwers in Caracas as well as peaceful protests in other cities in the region over the past week. In the eastern port city of Veracruz, in the Gulf of Mexico, around 3,000 people chanted ''Yanquis Out of Iraq'' on Saturday. They convened another demonstration under the theme ''Tamales Against Hamburgers'', to be held outside a local Burger King next Thursday. Tamales are a traditional Mexican dish made of ground beef seasoned with chili, rolled in cornmeal dough and wrapped in corn husks. In Uruguay, U.S. flags were burnt in a protest Friday that drew thousands of anti-war demonstrators in Montevideo and was planned by the country's central trade union and student groups. U.S. embassies and consulates were also the targets of hostility in Montevideo, Caracas and other cities, including Valencia, 120 kms from the Venezuelan capital. Venezuela's Arab community, which numbers around one million in that oil exporting country of 23 million, has also joined the mobilisations against Bush.

• Diego Cevallos (Mexico), Gustavo González (Chile), Humberto Márquez (Venezuela) and Marcela Valente (Argentina) contributed to this report. (END/2003)

Source

Chavez has antagonised neighbours with his leftist views

The Venezuelan army has bombed Colombian armed groups operating on its territory after a clash along the border, President Hugo Chavez said on Sunday.

"A short while ago, I ordered an air force operation and we bombed an area where we detected the presence of a group," he said in his weekly radio address to the nation.

He ordered the operation on Thursday after the Colombians, whom he did not identify, attacked a Venezuelan military post, and the action reportedly forced them to retreat back into Colombia.

Mr Chavez also revealed that Colombian President Alvaro Uribe had asked for a personal meeting within days to "clear up" difficulties between the two countries which share a 2,219-kilometre (1,379-mile) border.

"We are working on a presidential meeting which will take place in the next few days - we are deciding the time and place," Mr Chavez said, adding that it would probably take place in western Venezuela.

'Effective air strike'

The Colombian Government has been fighting leftist rebels for decades in a bloody civil war also involving right-wing paramilitaries.

Mr Chavez gave no details of the bombing operation and there have been no reports of casualties among the Colombian fighters.

Neither paramilitaries nor rebels nor the armed forces of Colombia have authorisation... to be on Venezuelan territory

Hugo Chavez

But he insisted that the air strike had been "effective... and caused the group to double back toward Colombian territory".

"Neither paramilitaries nor rebels nor the armed forces of Colombia have authorisation, nor will they have it, to be on Venezuelan territory," he said.

The Colombian irregulars had, he said, attacked a Venezuelan military post in a 90-minute firefight during which they fired a missile at an army helicopter.

Earlier in March, Venezuela announced it would boost its border garrison of 5,000 soldiers.

Mr Chavez's revelations appear to be the first official report of fighting in the border area this week.

A Colombian TV station reported on Sunday that fierce fighting on the Colombian side had caused 20 deaths.

The clashes between leftist rebels and rightwing paramilitaries in the Tibu district of Norte de Santander province forced more than 100 people to leave their homes and seek shelter across the border in Venezuela, Caracol TV said in an unconfirmed report.

Strained relations

Ties between the leftist government in Venezuela and Colombia's US-backed leaders have been strained in recent months:

• The Venezuelan leader has accused Colombian businessmen of conspiring with Venezuelan colleagues to topple his leftist government, which has weathered both a coup and a damaging political strike over the past 12 months.

• The Venezuelan Government has been accused by Colombian media and the Venezuelan opposition of aiding Colombian leftist rebels.

• In February, the Colombian consulate in Caracas was damaged in a mysterious explosion.

Mr Chavez described Colombia as a "sister nation" in his speech on Sunday.

"Now, we are going to put things in their place, show each other mutual respect, work and build together," he said.

<a href=www.newsday.com>By Randi F. Marshall Staff Writer March 31, 2003

When Margaret Gallagher pulls up to a Sunoco station in Huntington village, she's not thinking about the expansive oil fields of Venezuela or the Middle East -- or the huge transportation network that carries her gasoline up the Hudson River and eventually into the tank of her Chevrolet Suburban.

Instead, Gallagher, a 41-year-old mother of two from Commack, is thinking about just one thing: the price.

"It's painful," said Gallagher, as she spent $10 to fill up a small portion of her 42-gallon gas tank, at $1.85 per gallon. "I do $10 or $20 at a time, because I can't afford to fill it up."

Like Gallagher, most New Yorkers have become keenly aware of the recent spikes in oil prices, but few are aware of the behind-the-scenes world of the metropolitan region's huge oil industry that works to quench their daily thirst for oil. It comprises an extensive web of Long Island and New York City companies that run the barges, ports, pipelines and distribution outlets.

All told, oil is an $8-billion industry regionwide, according to some estimates, with as many as 45,000 employees directly or indirectly associated with it.

"It's a very sizable industry that has a very low profile from a business standpoint," said Kevin Rooney, Oil Heat Institute of Long Island chief executive.

It's also an industry recently hit with what one expert called a "perfect energy storm" -- the confluence of a cold Northeastwinter, a strike in Venezuela, a heating oil spill into Long Island Sound, a dramatic barge explosion on Staten Island and, finally, the war with Iraq.

The impact of that storm pushed prices up by as much as $10 for a barrel of crude oil, resulting in gas prices that approach $2 a gallon in some locations. The price of a barrel of crude oil closed at $30.16 on Friday.

The average U.S. family spends $1,300 a year on energy costs, but experts say that number is even larger on Long Island, where taxes are higher, people drive more and 70 percent of them use heating oil.

But gasoline and heating oil retailers say that while they understand consumers' sticker shock, they are not benefiting from the increases.

"Financially, it's becoming a tremendous hardship. ... My dealers are in jeopardy," says Ralph Bombardiere, executive director of the New York State Association of Service Stations and Repair Shops.

"We should be making more, and we're not," said Kevin Beyer, who owns three gas stations in Port Jefferson, Huntington and Smithtown and says his profit margins have shrunk.

The difference between average wholesale and retail gasoline prices this year now hovers near 60 cents, while last year it stood at 53 cents, -- seemingly leaving retailers with a greater profit.

But Beyer, a Huntington resident, can tick off his increased costs from memory, saying the wholesale price doesn't include any of them.

Customers now buy less gas at a lower grade for a cheaper price, and more of them use credit cards. Beyer said he typically makes 10 cents on the gallon. But when a credit card is used on a $2 per gallon purchase, fees eat about 6 cents of that profit. After taxes, rent, and employee salaries and health insurance, very little is left, Beyer said.

"Truthfully, they [the prices] should be a lot higher," Beyer said. "We just raised the price. I hate doing it, but I own a house and I have a mortgage like everybody else. I have kids in school and I have expenses, too."

But some consumer advocates doubt the claims of low profits and high costs. Now, wholesale prices are on a fairly rapid decline, but retail prices are not, according to Joe Roy, the Long Island coordinator for New York Public Interest Research Group's Fuel Buyers Group. "If dealers felt squeezed in any way before, they can make up for it slightly now," he said.

Beyond gasoline and heating, oil plays a pervasive role in almost every aspect of the regional economy, from airlines to manufacturing, paved roads to shoe soles, plastics to carpeting. Its importance also has made security a greater concern to terminal operators, oil executives and barge captains, as everyone worries about potential terrorism.

The vulnerability of the region's distribution system garnered wide attention last month, after a barge exploded at a loading dock on Staten Island, killing two workers. The barge, owned by Hicksville-based Bouchard Transportation Co., was unloading 4 million gallons of gasoline into a storage facility maintained by Exxon Mobil Corp. The case remains under investigation by the U.S. Coast Guard.

Just a week before that, a Hornbeck Offshore Transportation barge leaked 2,500 gallons of heating oil into Long Island Sound after striking bottom.

These events not only highlighted the intricate network of oil distribution in the region, but raised questions about its impact on the environment.

Such accidents actually have become relatively rare since the passage of the Oil Pollution Act of 1990. Among other things, the act enforced the use of double-hulled barges, phasing out barges with only one hull, and making a hole in the hull less likely to turn into a spill. According to the Coast Guard, which handles oil-spill prevention and response, the number of spills reported in the Activities New York port, which includes Queens and part of Long Island, was cut in half from 1992 and 2002.

"The regulations came out, and I think industry responded," said Lt. Rebecca Ore, with the Coast Guard's environmental protection branch.

Whether the oil industry was a willing participant or not is up for debate. "They've been dragged into it kicking and screaming," said Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst for the Oil Price Information Service.

And advocates are quick to point out that some companies are more reputable than others. The American Waterways Organization has 375 members who follow "responsible carrier" guidelines. But spokeswoman Anne Davis Burns said roughly 30 percent of the nation's cargo is carried by non members, who may not follow those rules.

"Certainly there are always companies that don't make the commitment that AWO members have made to safety," Burns said. "I think there are a lot of little guys in this business."

Foreign vessels, in particular, may be more likely to spill oil, and less likely to obey U.S. regulations, according to Alan McKim, president of Clean Harbors Inc., an oil-spill clean-up firm in Braintree, Mass.

While Bouchard is considered a relatively good player in the industry, an incident like the explosion at Port Mobil left members of the Coast Guard, which inspects all barges and terminals, in shock. "Nobody had seen anything like this ever," said Lt. j.g. William Grossman, chief of port safety and security.

And experts note that the industry still has a way to go before it fully cleans up its act.

"I think there are things that are going to take time before they are fully implemented," said McKim, referring to double-hulled barges and on-shore storage spill protection.

The complex, high-tech process that brings oil from the fields to the furnace begins with exploration and drilling, in fields from Texas and Alaska to Iraq and Nigeria. The United States relies on imports for 55 percent of its oil, mostly from Canada, Mexico, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia. Some large-scale oil companies, such as ConocoPhillips, ChevronTexaco and ExxonMobil, are involved in every step, while in some cases, it is more fragmented.

That crude oil is brought out of the wells, and taken to terminals, where it is sent by tanker or pipeline to refineries across the globe.

There, the huge tanks and eerie lights that rise up near the New Jersey Turnpike in Linden, N.J., and those that spread across acres of land in the South and West, make up refineries that convert crude oil into products including gasoline, heating oil and asphalt.

Pipelines and large barges then travel the nation's rivers to bring heating oil, gasoline and other products to storage terminals, including those in New Jersey. Smaller barges then bring the oil up the Hudson River to terminals peppered throughout New York State, including several in the city and on Long Island. The terminals may handle oil from multiple companies, or from a single giant. Port Mobil on Staten Island, for instance, sees 700 barges a year, Exxon Mobil Corp. spokesman Barry Wood said.

"We are an invisible industry unless you live on the river or something," American Waterways Organization spokeswoman Burns said.

Take Staten Island's K-Sea Transportation Corp. With 31 barges, 17 tugs and three small tankers, the company moves roughly 86 million barrels of oil a year in the Northeast, but its resources, too, have been stretched by the busy winter.

"No one thinks about the millions and millions of gallons [of oil] transported without a problem," K-Sea president Tim Casey said, noting his company's efforts to shift from single-hulled barges to safer, double-hulled ones.

Indeed, Long Island has far more oil moving on its roads, in its waters and even through pipelines than most residents would suspect, according to the Oil Heat Institute's Rooney. Some oil heads through an underground pipeline from New Jersey to Inwood on the South Shore. Another pipeline brings heating oil from a water terminal at Port Jefferson to Setauket, and then to Holtsville, the Island's largest terminal, which handles a quarter of the area's petroleum. A pipeline also connects Holtsville to Plainview. Barges stop at water terminals in Oceanside, Glenwood Landing, Oyster Bay and Cold Spring Harbor.

About 12 terminals are spread across the five boroughs, in particular Queens and Brooklyn.

"You can't speak about Long Island in a vacuum," said Getty Realty Corp. chief executive Leo Liebowitz, who previously also owned Getty Petroleum Marketing Inc. "It's metropolitan New York, and New York Harbor is the center, really, of the East Coast marketing and distribution system."

That extensive network eventually ends when large trucks from companies such as Astoria-based Mystic Transportation Inc. take barrels of gasoline, heating oil or other products to individual gasoline stations or heating oil companies, which then transport it to their consumers. According to Mystic marketing vice president Jack McNamara, that piece of the pipeline was strained by recent events, too. "We had long lines, excessive delays [at the terminals and in traffic]," McNamara said, "and then productivity slows down and it costs more money."

The whole process can take anywhere from two weeks to two months, depending on where the oil starts from and the path it follows.And recent events abroad and harsh weather in the Northeast have slowed the supply chain, while also increasing demand for oil.

"When you've got a system that runs so efficiently and continuously, one little glitch can make a significant problem," said ExxonMobil's Wood. "It's very capital-intensive, as opposed to labor-intensive, and technology is critical to the business bottom line."

All parties involved in the process have had to work harder to keep the path in place this winter. "We've all about had it," said John Maniscalco, executive vice president with the New York Oil Heating Association in Manhattan. "And you never make it back. Whatever you lose, you lose."

Allison Heaney has watched the cost of the oil in her company's barges, double this year, to $200,000 for a 160,000-gallon barge. Heaney's College Point oil heating company, Skaggs-Walsh, hasn't passed every increase on to its 10,000 consumers, given the competition among both oil and gas players. So, profits are down 10 percent to 15 percent, according to the Locust Valley mother of two.

Heaney and her 85 employees worked long hours to make the process run smoothly through the rough patch, and she's had to pay out lots of overtime. "My credit-card bills are low because I'm never able to go out for dinner," she said. The ripple effect that stretches from Casey to McNamara to Beyer and Heaney to Gallagher takes its toll on the regional economy, as consumers have less money to spend elsewhere. A $10 increase in a barrel of oil's price can shave up to 2 percentage points off annualized gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic growth, Georgia State University economic forecaster Rajeev Dhawan said.

Gasoline in the United States remains relatively inexpensive, thanks to lower taxes. Tom Peters, executive vice president with the Empire State Petroleum Association, points to how much more a gallon of milk costs, arguing that far less is involved to get the milk to store shelves.

And the oil industry also faces the constant conflict of increasing consumer demands and environmental constraints.

"We want to drive SUVs, we want air-conditioning, we want heating and we want lots of lights," said Charles Moore, vice president of petroleum business for Cambridge, Mass.-based Aspen Technology Inc., a software and consulting company. "But we don't want oil drilling, we don't want refineries and we don't want pipelines going across the country."

In the end, consumers still feel the impact. SUV driver Gallagher said her family is buying fewer luxuries. She and her husband, Kevin, and their two children are also forgoing the day trips to Sag Harbor or Orient Point they once enjoyed.

"As much as I don't like paying the gas prices, I'd rather have the safety [of a larger vehicle] than the economy [of a smaller one]," said Kevin Gallagher, 42. "But the prices limit you. It's out of hand."

Still, the Gallaghers may end up feeding the oil industry gullet even more, with the potential purchase of a third family car -- this time, for their 16-year-old daughter, Alicia. She's hoping for a yellow Mustang, using the higher gas prices to persuade her parents to buy one.

30 Mar 2003 22:59:43 GMT By Irwin Arieff

NEW YORK, March 30 (Reuters) - The number of journalists killed in the line of duty fell to a 17-year low in 2002 but the number imprisoned rose for the second year in a row, an international media watchdog group said on Sunday.

Nineteen journalists died around the world last year while carrying out their jobs, including three each in Colombia, Russia and the Palestinian West Bank, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.

That was down sharply from 2001 -- when 37 were killed, including eight in Afghanistan alone -- and the lowest number to die as a result of their work since the group began tracking the annual death toll in 1985.

Ann Cooper, the group's executive director, attributed the decline to the relative quiet in Afghanistan and progress toward peace in Sri Lanka, Angola and elsewhere, reducing the risk faced by journalists covering violent conflicts.

However, the West Bank was "a dramatic exception," Cooper said in "Attacks on the Press," the group's annual report.

"Three journalists there were killed by gunfire from Israeli Defense Forces and several more were wounded," she said.

The committee investigates all reports before including them in its report, to ensure that deaths are related to the journalists' work. It includes editors, publishers and news directors in its count as well as reporters and writers, so long as they cover the news or comment on it in print, photographs, radio, television or on the Web.

136 IN JAIL AT YEAR'S END

The watchdog group said 136 journalists were in jail at the end of 2002. That was 15 percent more than at the end of 2001 and a 68 percent increase from the 81 imprisoned at the close of 2000.

For the fourth consecutive year, China was the world's leading jailer of journalists, holding 39 in cells as of the end of last year, the group reported.

Eritrea was Africa's biggest jailer of journalists. President Isayas Afewerki banned the entire independent press corps in September 2001, accusing them of "endangering national unity," the group said.

Eighteen journalists were subsequently imprisoned without charge and when they launched a hunger strike in protest in March 2002, they were moved to unknown sites and have not been heard from since, the committee said.

Among last year's dead was Daniel Pearl of the Wall Street Journal, whose throat was slit by his kidnappers in Pakistan.

Shot and killed in Colombia during the year were Orlando Sierra Hernandez, Hector Sandoval and Efrain Varela Noriega.

Killed in Russia were Natalya Skryl, dead from head injuries suffered in an attack, Valery Ivanov, shot dead, and Roddy Scott, slain in fighting in the republic of Ingushetia.

Slain in the Palestinian territories in 2002 were Raffaele Ciriello, Imad Abu Zahra and Issam Tillawi, all killed by Israeli gunfire.

Edgar Damalerio and Sonny Alcantara were both shot and killed in the line of duty in the Philippines.

Other journalists killed in 2002 in the line of duty included Harunur Rashid, ambushed by gunmen in Bangladesh; Tim Lopes, murdered by drug traffickers in Brazil; Ram Chander Chaterpatti, dead of gunshot wounds after an assassination attempt in India; Nava Raj Sharma, kidnapped and killed by Maoist rebels in Nepal; Shahid Soomro, assassinated in Pakistan; Jimmy Higenyi, killed while covering a rally in Uganda, and Jorge Ibrain Tortoza Cruz, shot while covering a violent protest in Venezuela.

JAMES STEVENSON <a href=www.canada.com>Canadian Press Sunday, March 30, 2003

CALGARY (CP) - The United States slurps up more oil and natural gas from Canada than any other foreign country on Earth.

And with war raging in the Middle East, civil uprisings in other oil producing countries and a recent decision not to drill in a sensitive U.S. Arctic wildlife refuge in Alaska, even greater demand for Canadian energy is expected. The daily flow of Canadian oil to the U.S. has increased dramatically over the last few years and almost double the quantity from a decade ago.

Canada is now second only to Saudi Arabia as a source of imported oil for the United States, which imported 1.8 billions per day from the Saudis in January and 1.6 million barrels per day from its northern neighbour.

When imports of natural gas are included, the importance of Canada as an energy source for the United States becomes even more apparent. Canada supplied about 94 per cent of American gas imports last year.

Yet with all the volatility in global energy markets, talk of future U.S. energy supplies rarely focus on Canada.

"I don't think Canadian oil production comes first of mind to Americans when they think of where their gas, diesel and jet product comes from," said Rick George, president of oilsands giant Suncor Energy.

But a recent U.S. media attention to the massive energy reserves in the northern Alberta oilsands - and the synthetic crude created from its bitumen - suggests awareness is quickly growing, he said.

"My belief is it will be positive," said George.

For the first time, a recent report by the Oil and Gas Journal on global oil reserves included 177 billion barrels of reserves from the oilsands - a number that dwarfs estimated reserves of Canadian conventional oil.

Greg Stringham, a vice-president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, says political stability is also a key ingredient for energy trade between the U.S. and Canada.

Despite a recent disagreement between the Bush administration and the Chretien government over the handling of the Iraqi crisis, the energy-trading business has been very open and free, Stringham said.

"They're a good market, we're a good supplier. (The United States) is close and it's connected by pipeline. So all of those things add to our attractiveness as a potential producer," Stringham said.

Meanwhile, recent political problems have made several of the world's other large energy producers less-than attractive as an energy source for the United States.

Vince Lauerman, a global energy strategist with the Canadian Energy Research Institute, says a "relatively long and brutal war" in Iraq would greatly enhance demand for Canadian energy.

"The worse the war goes, and the more the Middle East boils, the higher energy security becomes as an important issue to Washington," Lauerman said.

"And with that comes benefits to Canada."

But the Middle East is not the only trouble spot for global oil production.

About 40 per cent, or 800,000 barrels per day, of Nigeria's oil production was cut off this week as major energy companies evacuated staff amid tribal fighting that has killed at least 100 people in the African country in the past two weeks.

And Venezuela is still struggling to recover from a two-month strike that failed to oust President Hugo Chavez and paralysed the South American country's lifeblood oil industry, costing about $9 billion.

Venezuela is still only producing about two-thirds of its three million barrels per day total it had before the strike and the situation remains volatile as Chavez continues to seek revenge on strike leaders.

Still, geopolitical turmoil does not necessarily mean greater demand for Canadian oil, said one U.S. energy company spokesman who asked not to be identified "There's lots of sources out there and a well-developed oil infrastructure all over the world."

But a recent political decision in Washington - overshadowed by Iraqi war coverage - has the potential to increase U.S. demand for Canadian energy in future.

Last week, the U.S. Senate narrowly rejected a budget provision that would have allowed oil drilling in the 77,000-square kilometre Alaska National Wildlife Refuge.

Development of the refuge had been a key part of President George W. Bush's energy plan - despite opposition from environmentalists who fear that drilling would jeopardize the delicate ecosystem and its wildlife.

Stringham said he doesn't believe attempts to drill in the wildlife refuge will go away. "The administration down there has been quite adamant in trying to put it forward and I'm not sure if they're ready to just drop it at this point in time."

Canada has long lobbied for a U.S. ban on drilling in the wildlife refuge and has taken a more prominent role recently in promoting Canadian energy to its larger neighbour to the south.

Some Canadian oil executives, however, say further lobbying efforts are not needed to increase U.S. demand for energy.

"I think what we've got to show is steady supply, good quality product and reliable outcomes," said Suncor's George. "And then the market will come."