Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez sent a soothing message to US motorists, saying that Venezuela is not preparing to cut off oil shipments to the US.
The socialist leader rattled oil markets when he threatened a week ago to halt shipments to the US in retaliation for Exxon Mobil Corp's success in convincing courts in the US and Europe to freeze Venezuelan assets.
"We don't have plans to stop sending oil to the United States," Chavez said on Sunday during a visit to heavy-oil projects in Venezuela's petroleum-rich Orinoco River basin that were nationalized last year.
But he added that Venezuela could cut off supplies to the US if Washington "attacks Venezuela or tries to harm us."
Chavez has repeatedly warned against a possible US invasion to seize control of Venezuela's immense oil reserves. US officials have denied any such plan exists. The US relies on Venezuela for about 10 percent of its oil imports.
The Chavez administration is locked in a legal battle with Exxon Mobil over compensation for the nationalization of one of four heavy-oil projects in the Orinoco River basin.
Exxon Mobil, the world's largest publicly traded oil company, is seeking to freeze billions of dollars in Venezuelan assets in the US and Europe to guarantee a payoff if it wins a decision by an international arbitration panel.
Last month, a British court injunction ordered the temporary freezing of up to US$12 billion in assets of state-run Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA).
Last Thursday, Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez said Exxon Mobil was demanding more than 10 times the compensation it may deserve from Venezuela for nationalizing the oil venture.
Exxon Mobil walked away from its heavy-oil upgrading operations in the Orinoco basin after Caracas changed the terms of the contract. Other major oil firms, including the US' Chevron Corp, France's Total, Britain's BP PLC and Norway's StatoilHydro ASA, have made deals to continue on as minority partners.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
PRECISION STRIKES: The most significant reason to deploy HIMARS to outlying islands is to establish a ‘dead zone’ that the PLA would not dare enter, a source said A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) would be deployed to Penghu County and Dongyin Island (東引) in Lienchiang County (Matsu) to force the Chinese military to retreat at least 100km from the coastline, a military source said yesterday. Taiwan has been procuring HIMARS and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) from the US in batches. Once all batches have been delivered, Taiwan would possess 111 HIMARS units and 504 ATACMS, which have a range of 300km. Considering that “offense is the best defense,” the military plans to forward-deploy the systems to outlying islands such as Penghu and Dongyin so that
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest foundry service provider, yesterday said that global semiconductor revenue is projected to hit US$1.5 trillion in 2030, after the figure exceeds US$1 trillion this year, as artificial intelligence (AI) demand boosts consumption of token and compute power. “We are still at the beginning of the AI revolution, but we already see a significant impact across the whole semiconductor ecosystem,” TSMC deputy cochief operating officer Kevin Zhang (張曉強) said at the company’s annual technology symposium in Hsinchu City. “It is fair to say that in the past decade, smartphones and other mobile devices were
‘CLEAR MESSAGE’: The bill would set up an interagency ‘tiger team’ to review sanctions tools and other economic options to help deter any Chinese aggression toward Taiwan US Representative Young Kim has introduced a bill to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan, calling for an interagency “tiger team” to preplan coordinated sanctions and economic measures in response to possible Chinese military or political action against Taiwan. “[Chinese President] Xi Jinping [習近平] has directed the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. China has a plan. America should have one too,” Kim said in a news release on Thursday last week. She introduced the “Deter PRC [People’s Republic of China] aggression against Taiwan act” to “ensure the US has a coordinated sanctions strategy ready should
RSS