sg.biz.yahoo.com Tuesday March 11, 5:56 AM By Adam Smallman Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES (This updates a story from 1253 GMT with additional comments from ministers and further diplomacy news.)

VIENNA (Dow Jones)--There is no consensus among OPEC ministers gathering in Vienna ahead of Tuesday's policy meeting, because there appears to be no big idea on the table.

Ali Naimi, the oil minister for the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries' de facto leader Saudi Arabia, was tightlipped on arrival, in sharp contrast to the two meetings since December, at which members signed off on output hikes.

That increased production was intended to cool prices, but it failed.

This time, the world seems a little more complex. A conflict in Iraq may now only be a week away, OPEC's spare capacity - normally used to assuage oil price fears - is wafer thin and ministers fear an oil glut within weeks that could see prices tank.

OPEC Secretary General Alvaro Silva and oil ministers from Iran, Algeria and Venezuela have also dismissed talk that a suspension of the group's output ceiling, currently set at 24.5 million barrels a day divided among 10 OPEC members, excluding Iraq, might make it onto the agenda of the meeting.

It was left to Algeria's Oil Minister Chakib Khelil to give shape to the oil price fears sliding to the front of delegates' minds, even if OPEC's public front may be to issue soothing words over the security of crude flows on the cusp of war.

In an interview with Dow Jones Newswires, Khelil - who thinks OPEC should leave things unchanged at Tuesday's meeting - said oil prices will rise on the start of war, though he believes there's a possibility of a collapse to below $22/bbl thereafter.

Concerns "might last a week or two weeks, but the prices will go down even without...the use of (strategic) stockpiles," Khelil said.

With OPEC's failure to manage prices, the market is fixated on government-held oil stockpiles and whether they will be released to cover any disruption to oil flows.

A man with a hand on the taps of those stocks is U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, due in Vienna late Monday. He's likely to meet with some OPEC ministers, though he's ostensibly here to attend an International Atomic Energy Agency meeting.

Doubts Growing Over Spare Capacity

With a deadline for OPEC member Iraq to comply fully on weapons inspections or risk war just a week away, there are serious doubts over the amount of spare capacity OPEC can bring to bear.

United Arab Emirates Oil Minister Obaid bin Saif al-Nasseri said most members of OPEC are currently producing at maximum capacity.

Al-Nasseri added the UAE, previously considered to be one of the few members with significant spare capacity, actually has a "limited" ability to produce more and that additional capacity from Saudi Arabia will take "some time" to be readied for export - by which time the seasonal fall in consumption may have happened and a clearer picture of the progress of war in Iraq emerged.

OPEC President Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah said "around 3 million barrels a day," could be added to the market to ease supply concerns.

Mike Fitzpatrick, energy analyst at New York-based Fimat USA Inc., said: "I'm guessing they won't be adjusting quotas, because of the (opinion on the) Arab street." But additional Saudi oil would help take the sting out of a price spike. Fitzpatrick also predicts a release of IEA reserves.

Arab newspaper al Hayat reported Monday that a Gulf source said a proposal to suspend production quotas will be submitted to OPEC members Tuesday, "but if it faces strong opposition from some countries it will be delayed until there is an actual halt of supply."

But Iran's Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zangeneh said OPEC shouldn't adopt any decision that would look as if it supported a U.S. invasion of Iraq, Iran's state-run IRNA news agency reported.

The 11 members of OPEC account for a third of global oil production and the world would normally look to the group to keep sufficient oil flowing in the event of war in Iraq.

The price of the April Brent futures contract on London's International Petroleum Exchange was $33.69/bbl, down 41 cents from Friday's close. The April Nymex contract was down 51 cents at $37.27/bbl.

International diplomacy continued Monday. The split within the U.N. Security Council has widened, with Russian Foreign Minster Igor Ivanov warning Monday that Russia will vote against the current U.S. and U.K. resolution that gives Iraqi President Saddam Hussein a March 17 deadline to disarm. French President Jacques Chirac also said France would veto it.

France also lobbied undecided council members - Guinea, Angola and Cameroon - to vote against the second resolution that may trigger conflict.

U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair also faced internal dissent when a senior member of his government, International Development Secretary Clare Short, said she would quit if the U.K. goes to war without U.N. backing. Blair, she said, was being deeply reckless.

In Vienna, Tuesday begins with the arrival of the Iranian oil minister, to be followed by a breakfast meeting between OPEC and non-OPEC countries such as Angola, Mexico, Russia and Egypt.

OPEC will meet in the afternoon to decide on its policy.

Meanwhile, U.S. Energy Secretary Abraham will speak at an IAEA conference Tuesday morning and will hold a press conference around 1300 GMT.

-By Adam Smallman, Dow Jones Newswires; 44-20-7842-9343; adam.smallman@dowjones.com

www.financialexpress.com

Vienna, March 10:  The Opec oil ministers arrived in Vienna on Monday for a crucial meeting of the 11-nation cartel to discuss possible production increases if case of shortfalls on the world market if the US attacks Iraq.

Key oil producers Venezuela and Algeria said they believe that the cartel has enough room for manoeuvre to avoid a supply shortage in the event of war. But United Arab Emirates’Obaid al-Nasseri said it will be difficult for the grouping to up production as it is already at almost full capacity. “I think everybody is producing almost about” full capacity, he said. Crude prices have skyrocketed since January because of fears of a war on Iraq.

From: To: Undisclosed-Recipient:; Subject: Fw: Fw: - Mensaje de un cubano a Venezuela Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2003 18:53:39 -0400

Subject: - Mensaje de un cubano a Venezuela

Amigos venezolanos:

Soy cubano. Luego de haber pagado 20 años de presidio en Cuba, logré llegar a Venezuela en el año 1983, donde me recibió una organización cubano-venezolana dedicada al rescate de los presos políticos de Cuba.

Yo luché contra Fidel Castro hasta donde mis fuerzas me lo permitieron.

Luchamos contra Fidel y lo que estaba detrás de él: la URSS. No crean que fue fácil combatir contra soldados rusos de los mejor entrenados. Si Cuba es comunista, no es porque los cubanos no hayamos hecho todo, sino porque subestimamos al enemigo, que resultó ser muy poderoso.

No deseo que sepan lo que viví en el presidio político de Cuba. No era hemipléjico antes del año 1961, cuando fui cogido preso, y el cáncer que padezco hoy tiene un origen emocional muy claro. Tampoco sufría de terribles pesadillas cuando era joven. No es fácil decir que hay un paréntesis de 20 años perdidos en tu vida. No fue fácil ver morir a compañeros sepultados en cemento hasta el cuello, solo porque no delataron a sus compañeros antes de que este fraguara.

No fue fácil que me llevaran a un simulacro de fusilamiento en el paredón, juzgado y sentenciado por un tribunal popular que presidía un niño de 11 años. No fue fácil soportar que asesinaran a todos mis hermanos, a mi madre y mi hijo, por luchar en pro de la libertad. No fue fácil escuchar cada noche media docena de fusilamientos en los patios de La Cabaña, y antes de la metralla, el invariable grito ¡Viva Cristo Rey! No es fácil aceptar que lloro escribiendo estas líneas, a pesar de mis 67 años de edad, y el temple que un preso político en Cuba desarrolla después de 20 años de sistemática tortura física, psicológica y moral, que dirigía por entonces, en sus inicios, el tan admirado por el sátrapa de Miraflores, Ernesto che Guevara.

Amigos venezolanos: este hermoso país me dio la oportunidad de rehacer, si es que ello era posible, mi vida, y aunque tengo el dinero suficiente como para abandonarlo, y en Miami muchos compatriotas que me animan a marcharme, NO ABANDONARÉ ESTE PAÍS QUE ES MI SEGUNDA PATRIA. Una vez empuñé las armas contra Castro, y estoy dispuesto a hacerlo de nuevo por esta maravillosa tierra. No debemos dar treguas al Comunismo, o lo pagaremos con la vida de nuestros hijos. Castro me asesinó mi primer hijo en Cuba, pero les juro que no me asesinará un hijo más de los que le di a esta gloriosa nación. No le demos tregua al tirano de Miraflores, y si nuestros líderes de oposición no saben estar a la altura del peligro que enfrentamos, estémoslo nosotros.

No se puede vivir indignamente: antes mejor morir en la lucha por hacer de este país una nación gloriosamente libre y digna.

¿Qué pasa con los estudiantes de la Universidad Central de Venezuela que en el pasado fue pionera de la lucha contra la sombra del terror y de la opresión? ¿O es que acaso el país es solo responsabilidad de PDVSA, la marina mercante, los militares disidentes, la patronal y la central obrera?

¿Van a perder la oportunidad histórica de haberlo dado todo, hasta la vida de ser necesario? No olviden que ustedes, los estudiantes, son la conciencia límpida de los pueblos, y que las luchas que no estén tuteladas por ustedes, simplemente, no tendrán alma.

¿Qué pasa con las Fuerzas Armadas de Venezuela? ¿Acaso los militares de Altamira son los únicos cojonudos en esta lucha? Les advierto que si ustedes creen que con el tirano tendrán asegurado el poder, despierten ilusos, pues el tirano los volverá milicias y desarticulará por completo.

Vayan a Cuba, a ver qué queda del glorioso Ejército cubano: un montón de asesinos con uniforme lamiéndole las suelas a otro asesino. Yo creo que los herederos del ilustrísimo Ejército Libertador deben tener una actitud mucho más digna y de mayor altura, o simplemente quedarán reducidos a la más mínima expresión, venga el futuro con Chávez o sin Chávez.

Y tú, que piensas abandonar esta noble nación, estás en libertad de hacerlo, pero piensa que al "abandonar" este país, estarás asesinando a los hijos de tus amigos, conocidos y compatriotas. ¿Quieres hacerlo?

¡Adelante valiente! ¿Crees que puedas vivir el resto de tu dorado exilio pesando sobre tu conciencia que elegiste ser cómodo antes que luchar por el país que te ha dado lo que eres?, porque si puedes instalarte fuera es porque cuentas con un respaldo que te dio tu país.

¿Qué has ido a todas las marchas y ya con eso has luchado y no ha pasado nada, sino que todo está peor? En Cuba, te lo juro, yo hice mucho más que eso, y no por ello evité que mataran a mi hijo y nos dominara el comunismo. ¿Quieres hacer más?

¡Da la vida por este noble país! Yo ya estoy listo. ¿Y tú?

José Albornoz H.

www.vheadline.com Posted: Monday, March 10, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Historian Jorge Olavarria compares a last ditch battle fought by Cipriano Castro (1899-1902, 1902-1904, 1904-1908) 100 years ago to those fought and won by President Hugo Chavez Frias (1998-).

“The biggest and bloodiest battle in Venezuelan history took place 100 years ago in La Victoria (Aragua) between 8,000 poorly-equipped men defending Castro and 14,000 well-armed men belonging to the Liberating Revolution.” Castro won because of a serious mistake on the part of government forces that lost the advantage of superior numbers by fighting the battle in a place where they could not make full use of their troops.

• Until that moment, Castro had been on the run and it was just a matter of finishing him off.

Instead of heeding a proposal to take Caracas and attack Castro later from a more advantageous position, the arrogant warlord Luciano Mendoza insisted on attacking Castro holed up in La Victoria boasting that Castro would not last three hours … the astute soldier, Castro outfoxed his adversaries.

“Today the same is happening … the organized forces of the opposition grouped in the Coordinadora Democratica (CD) are far superior to those of the government … but they have lost the battle of the national stoppage.”

After losing the battle of La Victoria in 1903, the demoralized warlords returned home and General Juan Vicente Gomez mopped up by defeating Nicolas Rolando, last of the 19th century warlords, in Ciudad Bolivar in July 1903.

Olavarria traces two battles between April 2002 and February 2003 and says Chavez Frias has won both because of serious errors in the opposition camp, even there were minor gains.

Battle 1: The first battle wasn’t programmed but its preparation was a brilliant piece of political strategy. As a reaction to the 48 fast track decree in November 2001, the opposition organized a very successful 24-hour national stoppage on December 10 … the January 23, 2002 march ratified the size, enthusiasm and combativeness of the opposition. Next came the Federation of Chambers of Commerce & Industry (Fedecamaras), and Confederation of Trade Unions (CTV) document drawn up with the aid of the Church. Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) executives reacted against the dismissal of General Guaicaipuro Lameda and against the appointment of Gaston Parra as PDVSA president … protests were spontaneous ... the middle classes had lost their fear.

On April 11, the scaled stoppage was declared indefinite and the ensuing march surprised everyone by its size and enthusiasm … “even though we don’t know the truth of half of what happened, we do know that Chavez Frias resigned but the battle was lost.”

Battle 2 on December 2: The same leaders repeated the April 11 scheme … this time, however, the military that could have asked for Chavez Frias’ resignation were acting the fool in Altamira Plaza or boycotting the decisions of Coordinadora Democratica (CD). Daily TV messages from the triad stoppage leadership were repetitive and boring. Despite enthusiastic crowds, the second battle was lost.

Commenting the signature campaign, Olavarria calls it a third loss, which started well. There was no agreement on the tickets after the consultative referendum was dropped due to legal grounds.

The recall referendum was not even considered as a viable option at first. The discussion whether to include a signature campaign for a Constituent Assembly, Olavarria recalls, was beneficial because it eliminated an insensible and shortsighted opposition element.

• It was Chavez Frias himself that proposed the recall referendum and it was only included in the opposition ticket at the last moment.

Olavarria criticizes NGO Sumate’s announcement of signature statistics, claiming that it turned out to be the launching of Enrique Mendoza’s bid to become the single presidential candidate. Julio Borges, Henrique Salas Romer weren’t invited.

People who had marched for two months felt cheated.

Worse still, after the announcement of signature statistics, Fedecamaras president, Carlos Fernandez retired with friends to a restaurant for a juicy steak … it was there where he was scandalously arrested.

sg.biz.yahoo.com Tuesday March 11, 1:25 AM By Fred Pals Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

VIENNA (Dow Jones)--How much oil is Venezuela pumping? And how much spare capacity does it have?

OPEC ministers want to know, because the numbers could be essential in preparing any contingency plan for dealing with a supply disruption when the war in Iraq starts.

Delegates from the members states of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries are, of course, hearing numbers.

Venezuela's Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez publicly says that output of state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela (E.PVZ), or PdVSA, is at 2.65 million barrels a day, and that Venezuela will reach its OPEC output target of 2.819 million b/d by the end of the month. In the event of an Iraq war, the country could push output to around 3.5 million b/d by sometime in April.

But given the crippling impact of the two-month oil strike on PdVSA, Ramirez's figures are hardly credible, some OPEC sources say. During the strike, PdVSA's production dropped to as low as 150,000 b/d from the usual level of 3 million b/d as key staff walked off their jobs. A total of around 35,000 workers abandoned offices and oil fields in an effort to force Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez to resign.

"It's hard to believe Venezuela got back to those levels that soon and that they will hit their OPEC target by the end of this month," one senior OPEC delegate said. "It is just too good to be true. We estimate it stands at around 1.5 million b/d and they may get to 2 million within a month or so."

Spare Capacity Key To OPEC War Response

Although OPEC ministers are expected to leave the formal output ceiling of 24.5 million b/d unchanged at their meeting here Tuesday, they are eager to deliver the message that they'll pump as much as is needed to cool sizzling world oil prices.

But among market watchers there are serious doubts over the amount of spare capacity OPEC can call on if Iraqi exports - in excess of 1.7 million b/d - go offline. And if the war drags on or escalates, further supply disruption in the region is likely.

Only Saudi Arabia is seen capable of adding significant oil, with a little more than 1 million b/d of spare capacity. But that would leave the OPEC kingpin producing at full throttle, and producers prefer to leave at least 10% of total capacity idle in order to continue maintenance operations.

For Venezuela's part, secondary sources see current production at 1.8 million b/d, while average production in March is seen at 1.7 million b/d. Output level over the month of February stood at around 1.5 million b/d and will reach 1.8 million b/d, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration department. The International Energy Agency, or IEA, has estimated a permanent loss in potential output capacity of 400,000 b/d.

Most analysts agree Venezuela won't get back to its pre-strike level of 3 million b/d anytime soon because of the loss of human capital and the multibillion dollar loss in oil revenue.

"It's difficult to determine the exact production level, but I'm not buying production is over two million b/d given the impact the strike had on PdVSA," Jan Stuart, energy analyst at ABN AMRO in New York, said. "The only thing OPEC can do in this matter is just send out the message that they will do anything they can to ease prices."

Analysts say PdVSA will struggle to reach the 2 million b/d production level. After focusing on fields that don't require much added pressure to get the oil flowing, PdVSA will face difficulties as mature oil fields are more labor- and capital-intensive.

While it's not clear whether Ramirez holds up the 2.65 b/d production level in private bilaterals with his OPEC colleagues, Venezuela isn't likely to give its real and potential output levels as market share needs to be guaranteed, even if it is only on paper. During January's oil output agreement - in the midst of Venezuela's crisis - Ramirez and PdVSA president Ali Rodriguez fought hard to get an OPEC guarantee its market share would be respected.

Meanwhile, even though the current emphasis is on the possible lack of spare capacity among OPEC members in the case of a severe disruption, fears of a sharp drop in oil prices are also embedded in OPEC minds. And that could a create a different set of problems for Chavez.

By the time Venezuela comes close to its 2002 output level of 2.5 million b/d, the Iraqi war may be over and the joy of reaping additional oil revenue from high prices could be gone with it.

OPEC members might then be forced to rein in production to avoid a serious price crash - and that could leave Venezuela's fragile fiscal state of affairs even more vulnerable.

The economy is seen contracting by 15%-20% while the fiscal deficit is seen 8%-10% of gross domestic product. Venezuela's oil revenues account for half the government's income, 80% of exports and a third of GDP.

-By Fred Pals, Dow Jones Newswires; 0043-664-544-6846; fred.pals@dowjones.com