Venezuela
cautions U.S. it may curtail oil exports
Venezuela's
oil minister Rafael
Ramírez
By
Juan Forero
The New York Times
BOGOTÁ
Petroleumworld.com
02 28 06
Venezuela's oil minister, in blunt comments published in a Caracas
newspaper on Sunday, warned the United States that it could steer
oil exports away from the United States and toward other markets.
The
minister, Rafael Ramírez, said Venezuela, which is the
world's fifth-largest oil exporter and supplies more than 10 percent
of American oil imports, could act in the face of what he described
as aggression by the Bush administration.
Although
such warnings have become part of President Hugo Chávez's
verbal arsenal against the Bush administration, the comments by
Mr. Ramírez, coupled with the increasing sale of oil to
China, are seen by oil experts and political analysts as a signal
that Venezuela is serious about finding new buyers.
"Physically
it's very feasible, and politically it's very feasible,"
said Lawrence Goldstein, president of the Petroleum Industry Research
Foundation, a New York policy analysis group financed by the industry.
"It comes with an economic penalty, but apparently Chávez
is willing to pay that price."
That
economic penalty comes in the increased costs to transport crude
from oil-rich Latin America to as far away as China and India,
two fast-growing, energy-hungry giants that are eager to buy Venezuelan
oil. China is a 30-day tanker trip from Venezuela, while the United
States is just 5 days away and is well-equipped to refine the
heavy, highly sulfurous Venezuelan oil .
Mr.
Chávez's government, which has increasingly been sparring
with the Bush administration over everything from the Iraq war
to the Venezuelan leader's close ties to Cuba, is moving swiftly
to forge energy ties with China. Venezuela has said that this
year it will double exports to China, to 300,000 barrels a day.
Venezuela ships about 1.5 million barrels a day to the United
States.
Mr.
Ramírez, in an interview with the daily newspaper Últimas
Noticias, played down the hurdles in replacing the United States
as a buyer. "We're prepared to diversify our markets and
will work toward that," he was quoted as saying. "The
easiest thing is locating it. That will not be a problem."
Echoing
Mr. Chávez's fears of an American attack on Venezuela,
Mr. Ramírez said that Venezuela would respond by shutting
off exports. To consume more Venezuelan crude, China would have
to configure more of its refineries to process Venezuela's particular
type of crude. Venezuela also would have to increase its fleet
of tankers and build a pipeline to Colombia's Pacific coast.
The
threats out of Caracas have not been lost on the White House,
high-ranking American military officials and Republicans in Congress,
who in public hearings and closed-door sessions have addressed
both Mr. Chávez's warnings about diversifying oil markets
and China's increasing role in Latin America.
"I
think they're not as quick to dismiss his bluster as they used
to be," said Michael Shifter, a senior analyst at the Inter-American
Dialogue, a Washington policy group that follows American-Venezuelan
relations.
"His
intention to switch his markets away from the United States is
quite clear," Mr. Shifter said. "The question is, does
he have the capacity to carry it out and how quick could he carry
it out. The concern in the White House is that he's moving more
quickly than they thought he was able to move."
Oil
analysts say that if Venezuela does shift markets, the United
States would be able to find other suppliers, but it would take
time and cost more. "It's a global, homogeneous market, so
if China gets supplies from Venezuela, then they're not getting
supplied from the Middle East and elsewhere," said Mr. Goldstein
of the petroleum foundation. "That all then becomes available.
There's no change in supply. There's a change in redirection of
supply, at a higher cost."
NYT
02 27 06
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