Venezuela failed to boost oil production over the past 10 days as the government had pledged because strikers seeking to force out President Hugo Chavez disrupted the loading of tankers, the head of the state oil company said.
Oil output in Venezuela, which had been the fourth-biggest supplier of crude to the US, is unchanged since Dec. 28 at 600,000 barrels a day, or a fifth what the country was producing before a national strike began early last month, Petroleos de Venezuela SA President Ali Rodriguez said. The oil company has been unsuccessful in its effort to replace striking workers, hiring just 15 new employees since the walkout started, he said.
International shippers refuse to dock tankers because of safety concerns, said Rodriguez, appointed by Chavez in April.
"If you don't get the inventories out, the storage tanks get full and you have to stop producing," he said in an interview.
The longer oil production is interrupted in Venezuela -- where the industry accounts for half of government revenue -- the more pressure will mount on Chavez, who angered workers in part because of efforts to increase state control over businesses such as the oil company, analysts said. Venezuela's reduced output and the threat of a war in Iraq helped drive up oil prices to two-year highs.
Crude oil for February delivery rose as much as 25 cents, or 0.8 percent, to US$33.33 a barrel in after-hours, electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It traded at US$33.14 at 1:09am Caracas time.
Chavez, a former lieutenant colonel who survived a coup attempt last year, has refused strikers' demands that he resign or call elections by the end of March. Chavez, whose term expires in 2006, has vowed to break the strike and said last week that the government would restore full oil production and exports by the middle of February.
Striking oil workers "didn't consider or don't care about the terrible consequences of stopping the oil industry," Chavez said in a televised speech last night. "They're traitors of the homeland, criminals and terrorists."
His government has made repeated forecasts of how fast production would increase, including a promise to produce 800,000 barrels a day by last week. Oil exports that had totaled 2.4 million barrels a day before the strike have climbed back to 1.5 million barrels a day, Chavez said, contradicting Rodriguez's assessment that exports would only reach half their pre-strike levels by the end of January.
Industry analysts have said the government would need several months at least to restore full operations in the oil industry once the strike ends.
"Forecasts by Chavez and other government officials are a ploy to demoralize the strikers, showing them that their actions have failed," said Vitali Meschoulam, an analyst with political risk research company Eurasia Group in New York. "Everyone knows that's not case."
Rodriguez, who has said production would total 2 million barrels a day by the end of January, declined to make further forecasts on output. He said exports that dropped 81 percent last month to about 15 million barrels.
‘CORRECT IDENTIFICATION’: Beginning in May, Taiwanese married to Japanese can register their home country as Taiwan in their spouse’s family record, ‘Nikkei Asia’ said The government yesterday thanked Japan for revising rules that would allow Taiwanese nationals married to Japanese citizens to list their home country as “Taiwan” in the official family record database. At present, Taiwanese have to select “China.” Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said the new rule, set to be implemented in May, would now “correctly” identify Taiwanese in Japan and help protect their rights, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. The statement was released after Nikkei Asia reported the new policy earlier yesterday. The name and nationality of a non-Japanese person marrying a Japanese national is added to the
AT RISK: The council reiterated that people should seriously consider the necessity of visiting China, after Beijing passed 22 guidelines to punish ‘die-hard’ separatists The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has since Jan. 1 last year received 65 petitions regarding Taiwanese who were interrogated or detained in China, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday. Fifty-two either went missing or had their personal freedoms restricted, with some put in criminal detention, while 13 were interrogated and temporarily detained, he said in a radio interview. On June 21 last year, China announced 22 guidelines to punish “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists,” allowing Chinese courts to try people in absentia. The guidelines are uncivilized and inhumane, allowing Beijing to seize assets and issue the death penalty, with no regard for potential
‘UNITED FRONT’ FRONTS: Barring contact with Huaqiao and Jinan universities is needed to stop China targeting Taiwanese students, the education minister said Taiwan has blacklisted two Chinese universities from conducting academic exchange programs in the nation after reports that the institutes are arms of Beijing’s United Front Work Department, Minister of Education Cheng Ying-yao (鄭英耀) said in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) published yesterday. China’s Huaqiao University in Xiamen and Quanzhou, as well as Jinan University in Guangzhou, which have 600 and 1,500 Taiwanese on their rolls respectively, are under direct control of the Chinese government’s political warfare branch, Cheng said, citing reports by national security officials. A comprehensive ban on Taiwanese institutions collaborating or
STILL COMMITTED: The US opposes any forced change to the ‘status quo’ in the Strait, but also does not seek conflict, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said US President Donald Trump’s administration released US$5.3 billion in previously frozen foreign aid, including US$870 million in security exemptions for programs in Taiwan, a list of exemptions reviewed by Reuters showed. Trump ordered a 90-day pause on foreign aid shortly after taking office on Jan. 20, halting funding for everything from programs that fight starvation and deadly diseases to providing shelters for millions of displaced people across the globe. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has said that all foreign assistance must align with Trump’s “America First” priorities, issued waivers late last month on military aid to Israel and Egypt, the
RSS