Caribbean countries scramble to keep oil stocks up

January 6 2003

The five-week strike that has paralysed Venezuelan oil shipments is constricting supplies to several Caribbean countries, causing prices to rise and governments to look elsewhere for fuel shipments, officials said.

Venezuela and Trinidad are the main suppliers of refined oil to the region. But as Trinidad and Tobago receives one-third of its crude from Venezuela, it will need to buy crude elsewhere at higher prices if its Venezuelan shipments don't arrive this month.

"Picking it up at a higher price, that is going to affect all of us," Byron Blake, assistant secretary general of the 15-member Caribbean Community, said on Friday.

As Venezuela's general strike affects world oil prices, at least six Caribbean countries, including Guyana and Jamaica, have asked neighbouring Trinidad for help in keeping up reserves of refined oil products, a Trinidadian diplomat in Venezuela said.

"When we receive Venezuelan crude, we first have to take care of our domestic needs and then consider helping our neighbouring countries," Trinidad charge d'affairs Nieves Callender said on Friday.

Under the 1980 San Jose Pact, Venezuela and Mexico provide oil at preferential rates to 11 other Caribbean and Central American countries, including Guatemala, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Honduras, Belize, Nicaragua, Barbados, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Jamaica and Panama.

Other countries, like Trinidad, have separate deals with Venezuela.

Prior to the Venezuelan opposition strike, Venezuela and Mexico each provided 80,000 barrels a day to countries under the pact. But Venezuelan exports have been reduced to a trickle by the protests against President Hugo Chavez's government.