<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Thursday, April 03, 2003 By: VenAmCham

The government proposal suggests the adoption of a system whereby Venezuela will provide oil in exchange for finished products, infrastructure development projects, and other goods acquired from abroad aiming to strengthen Venezuela's trade and to develop its infrastructure.

Energy & Mines Minister Rafael Ramirez says "these are important investment projects in which he foreign companies will do the work and provide their investment capital, and Venezuela will pay with oil."

During his "Alo Presidente" program last Sunday, President Chavez Frias had proposed exchanging oil and petroleum products for the development of Venezuela's infrastructure and claimed that several countries ... among them Brazil and Italy ... were willing to accept oil and other products in exchange for building prisons, schools, and houses in Venezuela.

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Thursday, April 03, 2003 By: VenAmCham

Venezuelan Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez  says foreign oil companies could invest as much as a billion dollars to develop new oil fields in Venezuela. ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell, Total Fina Elf, and Statoil are among companies operating in Venezuela that may develop the Tomoporo field with an estimated 1.5 billion barrels of light and medium crude, according to state news agency Venpres.

Another two fields with an estimated billion barrels of oil have also been added to the development plans, Ramirez says ... the Tomoporo field's discovery was announced last week by Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) director Luis Marin.

President Hugo Chavez has fired more than 16,000 of the PDVSA's 40,000 employees after they staged a strike demanding his resignation. At one time Venezuela's oil output fell to less than 200,000 barrels per day, from a 3 million barrel per day average last November. Current production volume is thought to be 2.4-2.8 million barrel per day with exports exceeding 2 million barrels per day.

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Thursday, April 03, 2003 By: VenAmCham

Less than a week after Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) president Ali Rodriguez Araque said that dismissals from the State-owned oil company had come to an end, a new list has been published announcing the dismissal of yet another 828 oil workers.

Signed by Rodriguez himself, the list raises the total of fired employees to 17,871 ... 47% of the labor force at PDVSA as per December 31, 2002, according to figures published in the Gaceta Oficial (Official Gazette).

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Thursday, April 03, 2003 By: VenAmCham

Oil prices have plunged 10% as US reserves show a surprisingly robust recovery following record declines and as US-UK allied forces advance toward Baghdad.

Crude oil inventories in the United States rose 6.8 million barrels last week, greatly exceeding the expected 2.75 million barrel recovery. The price of US light crude had recently fallen 81 cents to 27.75 dollars per barrel losing 3.30 dollars per barrel so far in April, while fears of a prolonged interruption of global supply have lessened.

US gasoline reserves increased 1.7 million barrels instead of an expected 700,000 barrels leaving tanks less full than in previous years, although there are more than 50 million barrels of crude oil and 13 million barrels of gasoline on hand.

MIKE KING <a href=www.canada.com>The Gazette; CP contributed to this report Thursday, April 03, 2003

Softer approach Ambassador tells Montreal audience our relationship 'remains very strong'

What Canada lacks in official support for the U.S.-led war in Iraq it makes up for in supplying its southern neighbour with resource-based energy, U.S. ambassador Paul Cellucci suggested yesterday.

"We already get more energy - oil, natural gas and electricity - (from Canada) than anywhere else," Cellucci told about 250 members of the Association de l'industrie électrique du Québec in a brief lunch-hour speech in downtown Montreal.

He compared Canada's contribution to such "unreliable sources" as the Middle East and Venezuela.

The ambassador emphasized the long-standing partnership between the United States and Canada, "our most important relationship in the world."

And while Cellucci said the long-term relationship he recalls from his stint as governor of Massachusetts "remains very strong," he acknowledged during a news conference after his talk that "there may be some short-term strain relative to the war in Iraq."

But referring to the energy factor as an example, Cellucci said "there are just too many things that benefit the peoples of both countries that we need to continue to work on together."

It was a softer approach than he had March 25 with an audience in Toronto, where he expressed how much U.S. President George W. Bush's administration was "disappointed" and "upset" with Ottawa's unwillingness to support the war in Iraq.

"I had a message to deliver last week and I did it," Cellucci said of the harsh criticism of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and the federal government.

"There is still a lot of support here in Canada ... a deep reservoir of goodwill between these two countries," he noted - some of it indirect.

"It is ironic that because of the ships in the Persian Gulf and the naval vessels and the military personnel assigned to U.S. and British units, the Canadian military is providing more help to the war in Iraq indirectly than the vast majority of the 49 countries who are part of the coalition supporting the war in Iraq," Cellucci said. "We're grateful for that support."

He finds that "an odd situation when two countries who are as close as we are, that we would be fighting a war, losing men and having prisoners of war taken, not to have Canada with us."

In the meantime, Cellucci stressed "the need to make sure our border remains open to business and closed to terrorists."

After his speech, Cellucci said anti-U.S. incidents in Canada sparked by the war are "unfortunate" but isolated, though he cautioned that the incidents might not go over well south of the border.

"Unfortunately, it's the kind of thing that gets reported back in the United States and kind of gives a somewhat false image."

Cellucci is scheduled to address the Institute for Research on Public Policy, a Montreal think tank, at a breakfast meeting this morning and further discuss the state of Canadian-U.S. relations.