OPEC Ready to Help Venezuela Fill Oil Orders

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, December 13, 2002

OPEC Ready to Help Venezuela Fill Oil Orders

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The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) said on Thursday that it was ready to temporarily supply the clients of Venezuela's state-run oil company PDVSA as the 11-day general strike paralyzed the country's oil industry.

Venezuelan Television quoted Gustavo Marquez, the country's ambassador to OPEC who was attending the OPEC ministerial meeting in Vienna, Austria, as saying the offer was contained in a letter to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez from Rilwanu Lukman, president of the OPEC conference.

Lukman said, "We are all deeply concerned over the reports of Venezuela's internal crisis caused by infamous actions taken by a few in an attempt to destroy the constitutional order and oust a legitimate government."

Marquez said the OPEC members had pledged their full support for Venezuela by helping Venezuelan oil giant PDVSA supply both internal and international markets with oil.

In another development, the Venezuelan government delegation and Chavez's opponents on Thursday confronted each other at the 15th American regional meeting of the International Labor Organization in Lima, Peru.

The opposition Venezuelan Entrepreneur Central (CEV) and Venezuelan Worker Central (CTV) labeled Chavez as "authoritarian, prone to dictatorship" and called for an early referendum.

Defending the Chavez administration, the government delegation accused the CEV and CTV, along with other opposition parties, of plotting a coup similar to the one in April.

It said the goal of the general strike called by the opposition was to indefinitely paralyze the country.

The general strike, which entered its 11th day on Thursday, was called by anti-government labor and business leaders to pressure Chavez to hold an early referendum on his rule.

Venezuelan oil production has dropped to 1.5 million barrels per day, a reduction of 50 percent of the normal level. Its daily exports now amount to only 28 percent of that in November.

Venezuela, the world's fifth largest oil exporter and the only South American country in the 11-member OPEC, provides 13 percent of the oil imported by the United States.

The opposition has blamed Chavez for plunging the country into the worst recession in more than a decade. Venezuela has experienced a six percent economic contraction this year.

In April, Chavez was briefly ousted in a coup but later restored to power by his supporters.

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