Word: oil
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...this good or bad for Venezuela and the U.S.? The answer is yes. As oil nears a once unthinkable $100 a bbl., Chávez can afford to delay costly drilling and refining expansions like Paraguaná's and spend that money on socialist programs and other political pursuits. In a bravado performance at a Nov. 18 meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Chávez and his new best friend, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, mocked the U.S. and blamed the weak dollar, not Venezuelan production capacity, for the high price of oil. "The fall of the dollar...
...Oil experts say Venezuelan production is slipping and Chávez's industry policy for the long term is risky. Venezuela, like Mexico and Iran, needs reinvestment and foreign investment to keep its $100 billion industry in prime condition. But with China's and India's demand for crude inspiring projections for exponential growth and the U.S.'s determination to remain a slave to oil, the oil industry may well have hit a point when the short term is the long term--every barrel not pumped today will be worth more tomorrow. "The Venezuelans are investing as much as they want...
...anti-U.S. agenda took office in February 1999, prices were languishing at about $10 a bbl.--so the former paratroop commander campaigned to revive OPEC, persuading the cartel to rein in production to boost prices. The effort paid off when the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq shook oil markets and prices began their awesome ascent. The spike also helped Chávez recover from a reckless and devastating 2002 strike by his opponents inside PDVSA...
...less certain that PDVSA really recovered. Before the strike, Venezuela pumped more than 3 million bbl. of oil a day (m.b.d.). Chávez and his loyal Energy Minister, Rafael Ramírez, who is also PDVSA's president, say they're back to 3.2 m.b.d., but even OPEC says Venezuela's output is 2.4 m.b.d. PDVSA's exploration and production vice president, Luis Vierma, warned last July of an "operational emergency" because of a lack of drilling rigs. In recent years, there has been a troubling string of accidents; and oil corruption, the blight that Chávez vowed to eradicate, became...
Venezuela may be sitting atop one of the world's largest oil deposits--Chávez claims there are more than 200 billion bbl. in the Orinoco Belt, which, if true, is nearly 10 times as many proven reserves as the U.S. has. But most of the stuff is extra-heavy crude. Tapping and processing that tarlike oil require billions in investment. Analysts say PDVSA has been slow to start those projects, including joint stakes with China's CNPC, Brazil's Petrobras and Iran's Petropars in southeastern Venezuela...