Chavez Lifts Emergency Status on Venezuelan Oil Exports

www.voanews.com VOA News 07 Mar 2003, 01:33 UTC

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has lifted the emergency status on crude oil and most petroleum exports, telling customers the state-run oil company will be able to fulfill its contracts.

Mr. Chavez made the announcement Thursday during a swearing-in ceremony for Petroleos de Venezuela's new board of directors.

Company officials declared in December that it was impossible to live up to its oil export contracts because of the two-month general strike that crippled the industry and brought Venezuela to a standstill.

President Chavez says output, which fell to less than 150,000 barrels a day during the strike, is now up to more than 2.6 million barrels a day. It was more than three million a day before the strike.

But oil workers who were fired because of their participation in the walkout said earlier this week that production is only about one million barrels a day.

Venezuelan's opposition called the general strike in December in a failed bid to force President Chavez to resign. They say his economic policies are destroying the country.