United States brands Venezuela as an unreliable supplier of crude oil 

www.vheadline.com Posted: Friday, February 28, 2003 By: Robert Rudnicki

The United States State Department has told senior Venezuelan officials that it now sees Venezuela as an unreliable supplier of petroleum and expressed serious doubts over political unrest which it believes has caused Venezuela's reliability to come into question. 

State Department spokesman Charles Barclay said the Venezuelan government would have to settle its differences with the opposition and reach an agreement to end the current unrest before Venezuela could once again be seen as a reliable supplier ... "a constitutional, democratic, peaceful and electoral" solution must be found. 

The comments came as Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) president Ali Rodriguez Araque and Energy & Mines (MEM) Minister Rafael Ramirez were visiting the Washington to assure the US government that it can rely on Venezuela to lift its oil supply should war on Iraq force prices higher.