Word: oil
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...Moscow MAKING NEW FRIENDS After a face-to-face meeting, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev said their countries would work more closely together on energy and foreign policy. This dismayed U.S. officials, who have watched Chávez trade access to his country's vast oil supplies for influence in Central America and farther afield...
...These are disproportionate measures coming from an autocratic ruler who protects his family," says Daniel Moeckli, a Middle East expert at the Center for Security Studies in Zurich. "Obviously, that is not a democracy." As for the threat of an oil embargo, "I am skeptical that the Libyans would carry it out," says Rolf Hartl, managing director of Swiss Oil Association, noting that Libya delivers 49% of Switzerland's supply of crude oil and owns one of the country's two refineries; those business ventures yield annual revenue of between $2 and $3 billion. "I believe they will calm down...
...experts agree. "The Libyans are stupid enough to act irrationally," says Conrad Gerber, president of Petro-Logistics, a Geneva oil consultancy firm. "They produce 1.7 million barrels a day, yielding billions of dollars, so the small Swiss market is a drop in a bucket for them...
...bluffing. Within days, as throngs rioted in front of Switzerland's embassy in Tripoli, the Libyan government shut down local subsidiaries of Swiss companies Nestlé and ABB, arrested two Swiss citizens, canceled most flights to Switzerland, and, on Thursday afternoon, announced that all Swiss-bound oil exports will be stopped until charges against the Gaddafis are dropped and the Swiss offer their apologies...
...experts agree on one point: should Libya definitely halt its oil delivery, Switzerland's supply will not suffer, and the price per gallon will not increase. Hartl says the country has sufficient reserves to last four and a half months - "enough time to find other sources, such as African and central Asian countries." Meanwhile, a hastily arranged Swiss delegation headed by Foreign Affairs Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey was dispatched to Tripoli yesterday to keep the crisis from escalating further. Given the ire in Libya, that might be one of the toughest tests of diplomacy the normally unctuous Swiss have ever...