Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez yesterday renewed a threat to halt oil supplies to the US if Washington "hurts" the Latin American country.
Relations between Venezuela, which exports the bulk of its oil to the US, and Washington have been badly strained since Chavez last month accused Washington of plotting to have him assassinated.
"If there is any aggression, there will be no oil," Chavez, who arrived in New Delhi on a four-day visit to India, told journalists, the Press Trust of India reported.
"We want to supply oil to the US. We're not going to avoid this supply of oil unless the US government gets a little bit crazy and tries to hurt us," he said after a ceremonial welcome at the Indian president's palace.
The US State Department has dismissed Chavez's accusations that Washington is seeking to have him killed as "ridiculous and untrue."
Venezuela is the world's fifth-biggest oil exporter and is among the largest providers to the US.
Asked whether the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), of which Venezuela is a member, will increase output to cool current near-record prices, Chavez said yesterday the cartel was "producing enough."
"[The] increasing price of oil has nothing to do with OPEC. It is the structure of the market," he said, adding OPEC was evaluating factors at work.
Crude futures rose slightly yesterday following Thursday's record surge of US$1.50, as active fund buying and supply fears continued to drive the market.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude for April delivery rose US$0.05 to US$53.62 a barrel.
Victor Shum, oil analyst in Singapore for Texas-based Purvin & Gertz, an energy consulting firm, said the surge in prices was "not consistent with supply and demand fundamentals."
"Although demand is strong, I don't think demand will exceed supply," he said.
The price surge was also supported by comments from OPEC official Adnan Shihab-Eldin of Kuwait, who said on Thursday that a major supply disruption could send crude prices to US$80 per barrel.
Oil prices are also up sharply in recent weeks due to fears that OPEC could rein in production at its upcoming meeting in Isfahan, Iran, on March 16.
However, recent signals from OPEC officials that the cartel is unlikely to cut production have failed to calm the market.
"It may take the OPEC meeting to break this surge in prices," Shum said.
Jitters about the OPEC meeting, cold weather and the weak dollar have contributed to the recent rise in oil prices, which are now 52 percent above year-ago levels.
Taiwan has arranged for about 8 million barrels of crude oil, or about one-third of its monthly needs, to be shipped from the Red Sea this month to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and ease domestic supply pressures, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday. The state-run oil company has worked with Middle Eastern suppliers to secure routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically passes, CPC chairman Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. Suppliers in Saudi Arabia have indicated they
A global survey showed that 60 percent of Taiwanese had attained higher education, second only to Canada, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan easily surpassed the global average of 43 percent and ranked ahead of major economies, including Japan, South Korea and the US, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for 2024 showed. Taiwan has a high literacy rate, data released by the ministry showed. As of the end of last year, Taiwan had 20.617 million people aged 15 or older, accounting for 88.5 percent of the total population, with a literacy rate of 99.4 percent, the data
CCP ‘PAWN’? Beijing could use the KMT chairwoman’s visit to signal to the world that many people in Taiwan support the ‘one China’ principle, an academic said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday arrived in China for a “peace” mission and potential meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), while a Taiwanese minister detailed the number of Chinese warships currently deployed around the nation. Cheng is visiting at a time of increased Chinese military pressure on Taiwan, as the opposition-dominated Legislative Yuan stalls a government plan for US$40 billion in extra defense spending. Speaking to reporters before going to the airport, Cheng said she was going on a “historic journey for peace,” but added that some people felt uneasy about her trip. “If you truly love Taiwan,
NEW LOW: The council in 2024 based predictions on a pessimistic estimate for the nation’s total fertility rate of 0.84, but last year that rate was 0.69, 17 percent lower An expected National Development Council (NDC) report expects the nation’s population to drop below 12 million by 2065, with the old-age dependency ratio to top 100 percent sooner than 2070, sources said yesterday. The council is slated to release its latest population projections in August, using an ultra-low fertility model, the sources said. The previous report projected that Taiwan’s population would fall to 14.37 million by 2070, but based on a new estimate of the total fertility rate (TFR) — the average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime — the population is expected to reach 12 million by
RSS