By Christopher Toothaker, Associated Press, 12/29/2002

CARACAS - Venezuela got some desperately needed gasoline from abroad yesterday as President Hugo Chavez said he was winning the battle against striking workers who have shut down the world's fifth-largest petroleum-exporting industry.

The Brazilian tanker Amazonian Explorer arrived with 525,000 barrels of gas off the coast of the eastern state of Anzoategui, Globovision television reported.

Smaller tankers were to ship the cargo - little more than a normal day's demand of 400,000 barrels - to several ports.

Fuel shortages continued and hundreds of drivers sat in long gas lines in Caracas yesterday, the strike's 27th day. Strike leaders called for more protests in cities and towns throughout the nation in their drive to force Chavez from power.

The shutdown has forced Venezuela to turn to other countries for fuel and food. Still, Chavez said Friday that ''we are emerging from the critical situation into which the country fell.''

He awarded medals to troops participating in efforts to reactivate the state-owned oil monopoly. Chavez has sent soldiers to take over oil facilities and commandeer trucks to distribute gasoline. His government is seeking replacement dockworkers, tug boat and tanker crews, field hands, and executives.

Venezuela's opposition, including the largest labor union, business chamber, and thousands of workers at Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. began the strike on Dec. 2 to demand that Chavez call a nonbinding referendum on his rule.

Juan Fernandez, a high-ranking oil executive who was fired for joining the strike, accused government ministers of misleading citizens by repeatedly telling them the energy crisis, which has cut oil exports from 3 million barrels a day to 160,000 per day, would soon be over.

''We aren't going to give up,'' Fernandez said. ''All we want is a free and democratic Venezuela.''

Opposition leaders accuse Chavez of sending the country into its worst recession in years and trying to impose a Cuban-style revolution. Chavez insists he wants to distribute Venezuela's oil wealth to the majority poor.

Chavez balked at his opponents' demands, saying they must wait until August, when a binding referendum may be held.

Talks being mediated by Cesar Gaviria, secretary general of the Organization of American States, will resume on Thursday, Gaviria said. He said delegates from both sides will work on possible election scenarios.

Venezuela supplied the United States with 14 percent of its oil before the strike. Concern that the strike could continue well into 2003, as well as fears of war in Iraq, pushed oil prices above $32 a barrel. Oil tankers that striking crews refused to bring to port are beginning to dock, because of the military and ''patriotic'' sailors, Chavez said.

''I'm sure that in a few days, or weeks, the long [gas] lines will disappear,'' said Chavez .

Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez said new managers would soon reopen a giant refinery in the Caribbean island of Curacao to produce 200,000 barrels of gasoline per day for Venezuelan use.

But the leader of the Curacao refinery's oil workers union, Elvis Andrade, said the Refineria Isla sent its last gasoline shipment Friday and shut down. A tanker left Willemstad harbor for Venezuela carrying 170,000 barrels of unleaded gasoline.

The refinery is owned by Curacao's government but is operated by Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. At full capacity, it can process 335,000 barrels of crude a day.

Scarcity has forced the Chavez government to seek international help. Trinidad was sending 400,000 barrels of gasoline. The Dominican Republic sent rice. Colombia sent 180,000 tons of food, the agriculture ministry said.

A small black market in gasoline emerged, with vendors selling gas at five to 10 times the normal price of 26 cents a gallon. ''I bought 20 liters [5 gallons] from speculators for 10,000 bolivares [$7]. That's a robbery, but what else can I do? I have a family to feed,'' said taxi driver David Pena.

This is a transcript of AM broadcast at 08:00 AEST on local radio. AM - Monday, December  30, 2002 8:28

ELEANOR HALL: Thirty years after the first oil price shock, the world has been hit by a new energy crisis. While it's not of the same magnitude as the 1970s OPEC crisis, the ongoing strike in oil-rich Venezuela has caused oil prices to soar to nearly US$33 a barrel. And at the pump here in Australia, prices are hitting a dollar a litre in the capital cities, with no relief in sight, as our Finance Correspondent Stephen Long reports.

STEPHEN LONG: It's the like selling coals to Newcastle, sand to the Sahara. Venezuela, the world's third biggest crude oil exporter, has begun importing oil. The first tanker from Brazil has already arrived. It may provide some relief for Venezuelans queuing overnight for the scant supplies of petrol still left but it won't end a global supply crisis which has prices at the pump in Australian capitals nudging a dollar a litre, higher in the regions. The general strike which has cut supplies from Venezuela to the world is about to enter its fifth week and the intensity of protests aimed at toppling President Hugo Chavez show no signs of abating. Even his regime concedes it will be weeks at best before the oil supply crisis ends. Venezuela's Vice-President Bernardo Alvarez.

BERNARDO ALVAREZ: We think by the middle of January, we will normalize the operations in Venezuela.

STEPHEN LONG: Snow storms in North America haven't helped the oil crisis, with heating fuel demands surging in the bitter northern winter. West Texas crude hit US$32.72 a barrel in recent trade, it's highest price for more than year, and some analysts are predicting it could reach US$35 a barrel if the Venezuelan blockade continues. John Hirjee of Deutsche Bank.

JOHN HIRJEE: If we look at the last spike, crude prices approached nearly 35 dollars a barrel. Now if this prolonged, if this strike in Venezuela is prolonged then we could conceivably see prices reach that level again, and in conjunction with that, the cold weather in the US, so all in all I don't think that oil prices in the short-term are heading downwards.

STEPHEN LONG: It's unlikely the world will see a repeat of the 1970s oil price shock, which caused soaring inflation and a global recession but a prolonged period of high prices could nonetheless fuel inflation and dampen economic growth worldwide.

ELEANOR HALL: That report from our Finance Correspondent, Stephen Long.

Dec 30 08:38 AFP

Hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets of Caracas on Sunday as embattled President Hugo Chavez engaged in a bitter war of words with leaders of a 28-day-old strike.

To cheers from flag-waving, whistle-blowing demonstrators, strike leader Carlos Ortega claimed the former paratrooper was acting in a criminal manner by refusing to give in to a mounting clamour for his resignation.

"Mr Chavez, you are not a democrat, you are a failed soldier," the unionist told the crowd who thronged an avenue in southern Caracas.

"You have declared war on Venezuelans, you are preparing for confrontation," said Mr Ortega, who was followed on the podium by a young child yelling out anti-Chavez slogans.

As Mr Ortega spoke, Mr Chavez thundered against his foes and proclaimed victory in the battle to regain the vital oil sector that had been idled by the strike.

"We have defeated the anti-Venezuela conspiracy," he told a jubilant crowd who attended the live broadcast of his weekly "Hello President" show at a gasoline distribution center 100 kilometers west of the capital.

A former colonel who won at the ballot box in 1998 the power he failed to grab in a military coup six years earlier, Mr Chavez spoke in military terms of the crisis rocking the South American county.

"It is like a war for Venezuela, a war between patriots and ... traitors," Mr Chavez said. As he spoke, several gasoline-laden trucks headed out of the installations, raising a thunder of applause from the crowd. advertisement advertisement

As his supporters roared "firm hand, firm hand" the president said he would not use force against those he said were plotting against him, and would let justice take its course.

Mr Chavez, whose term ends in 2006, rejected demands that he resign or call snap elections and said the crippling strike was not only doomed but had already failed.

But the long lines at gasoline stations and plunging oil output and export figures provided by his own government belied that claim.

Even outside service stations that ran out of fuel, motorists lined up, some for days, hoping supplies would eventually arrive.

Ali Rodriguez, who heads the Petroleos de Venezuela state oil company, conceded he too was affected by the shortages. "I have had problems to fill up my car with gasoline," he told journalists.

By strangling the oil industry, government opponents have hit at the lifeline of the South American country.

Mr Chavez proudly announced that Venezuela had exported seven million barrels of oil in the first 24 days of the month, an amount it usually ships out in three days.

Authorities have also said production was down to less than 700,000 barrels a day, a figure which strikers say is exaggerated and which amounts to less than one fourth of November's daily output.

Government officials insist internal distribution should soon get back to normal, thanks notably to the arrival Saturday of a Brazilian tanker and the expected shipment from Trinidad of a further 400,000 barrels of gasoline.

The crisis has also affected international markets, particularly the United States, which is preparing for possible war with Iraq.

With no resolution in sight to the crisis and fears of violence mounting, several countries, including the United States and Britain have reduced staff at their embassies and warned their citizens not to travel to Venezuela.

It expects to produce 2/3 of pre-strike volume by then December 30, 2002 - Bloomberg, AFP CARACAS

VENEZUELA will increase oil output by the end of January to two-thirds the amount the world's fifth-largest supplier was producing before a national strike began earlier this month, state oil company president Ali Rodriguez said.

Exports have dropped to about 11 per cent of pre-strike levels with Venezuela now producing between 600,000 and 700,000 barrels a day, he said at a press conference. That is more than quadruple the output that strikers estimate.

Output will rise to 800,000 barrels a day next week and two million by the end of next month, he said.

The figures contradict previous, more optimistic forecasts made by President Hugo Chavez's government, all of which have drawn scepticism from industry analysts who say it will take several months to restart refineries and production plants. The strike in Venezuela, which had been supplying about 9 per cent of oil used in the US, has pushed up the price of crude to two-year highs and forced Venezuela to import petrol to alleviate fuel shortages.

'The first step to ending the strike is to normalise the situation,' said Mr Rodriguez, who heads Petroleos de Venezuela SA.

Only one of three refineries in the country is operating - the plant at Puerto La Cruz, he said. That refinery is producing 60,000 barrels a day of petrol and an unspecified amount of other products, compared with 130,000 barrels a day before the strike.

Exports since the strike began Dec 2 have totalled about 6.2 million barrels of oil, compared with the 57.6 million barrels the country normally would have shipped, said Mr Rodriguez.

Mr Chavez has rejected demands that he resign or call elections and has said the crippling strike was not only doomed but had already failed.

Posted on Fri, Dec. 27, 2002 STEVENSON JACOBS - Associated Press

KINGSTON, Jamaica - Jamaica received 370,000 barrels of oil from Ecuador on Friday in an emergency shipment intended to help the country avoid a shortage caused by Venezuela's general strike.

In another consequence of the Venezuelan crisis, an oil refinery in Curacao that is one of the world's largest, shut down production Friday, company and union officials said.

Curacao's Refineria Isla, which receives most of its oil from Venezuela, is no longer processing gasoline, jet fuel, propane or oil lubricants, after shutting down its 37 refining plants, union president Elvis DeAndrade said.

The refinery, which employs more than 1,000 full-time, will not resume production until it can guarantee Venezuelan shipments of crude oil. The last two shipments of crude arrived last weekend, and there are no plans for more, the company has said.

In Jamaica, current oil reserves in Jamaica are lower than usual, enough to last only four more weeks, said Christopher Chin-Fatt of the state-run oil company PetroJam.

"This crude is coming just in time," Chin-Fatt said. "We have enough, but not as much as we'd like."

The shipment was originally scheduled to arrive Wednesday, but was delayed for undisclosed reasons.

Before the strike, Jamaica received 50 to 60 percent of its oil from Venezuela, or roughly 400,000 to 450,000 barrels per month.

Chin-Fatt would not disclose the cost of Friday's shipment. A similar-sized shipment is scheduled to arrive from Mexico in mid-January.

"But that's a little close," he said. "We're trying to advance that date."

Industry experts predict prices could soar higher as the strike continues in Venezuela, the world's fifth-largest oil exporter.

The strike, now nearly a month old, has crippled Venezuela's oil exports as opposition leaders try to force President Hugo Chavez to resign or call a referendum on his rule.

Raymond Wright, managing director of the Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica, called an oil shortage in Jamaica unlikely, but said a prolonged strike would hurt the island. Since the strike, he said, Jamaica hasn't received benefits previously enjoyed under a long-standing agreement with Venezuela, such as no-interest loans and credits on shipments.

"Now we have to pay for all the oil up front," Wright said.

In the meantime, Wright said Jamaica would continue to buy oil from other countries.