Western Venezuela oil pilots end strike-shippers

www.forbes.com Reuters, 01.21.03, 8:50 AM ET

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Oil tanker pilots have ended a seven-week-old strike in western Lake Maracaibo, a key oil export area, Venezuelan shipping agents said Tuesday.

The move should ease the export of crude oil from western Venezuela, which has dropped sharply due to the strike, but shippers said flows were unlikely to rise dramatically until foreign ship operators began using the ports again.

"We received a verbal assurance from the port captain that the pilots strike stopped yesterday," said one agent. It was confirmed by a second ship agent. Pilots are key to oil exports from the lake, both for docking tankers at loading berths and for navigating a long, narrow channel from the lake to the Caribbean.

In total there are some 24 channel pilots and 20 docking pilots in Maracaibo. Only five or six pilots, who broke the strike aimed at forcing President Hugo Chavez to resign, were available until now. Agents said the end of the pilots' strike meant that up to five tankers could leave the channel on one tide, versus two tankers now.

However, only tankers chartered by Venezuela's state-owned Citgo are currently exporting oil from Venezuela, and exports have dropped to one-sixth of normal levels.

Copyright 2003, Reuters News Service