Word: chávez
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...interview with TIME last week in Bolivia, where Venezuela is aiding the oil and natural-gas nationalization decreed this month by leftist President Evo Morales, Ram?rez affirmed that he and Ch?vez will again call on OPEC to curtail oil production. The reason, he insisted, is to keep prices at "simply the fair market level for our most important natural resource," which now generates $83 billion per year for Venezuela compared to $53 billion in 2000. OPEC ministers will probably decline to cut back output much, if at all, especially since the record revenues they're enjoying would make...
...that time, Venezuela was a robust ally of the U.S., but Ch?vez has taken a decidedly (and often stridently) more anti-Washington tack - even diverting some of his exports to China and India to help break his country's dependence on the market to the North. "The traditional lack of control over natural resources like oil" among developing nations like OPEC's, Ram?rez says, "has done profound damage to our economies for too long. We've created a new, more active awareness about our energy sovereignty...
...Some of Venezuela's supply reduction has resulted less from strategy than from political upheaval; a 2002-2003 strike by workers and managers at Venezuela's state-run oil monopoly who opposed Ch?vez didn't help, and and analysts believe that the fiery leader's recent actions to exert more state control over drilling projects has reduced investment. (Venezuela insists it is producing up to 3.5 million barrels a day, though many analysts put it at little over 2.5 million.) But the bottom line is that since 2000, the last time Ch?vez hosted an OPEC gathering, the cartel's daily...
...Ram?rez, widely recognized as one of OPEC's most hawkish, and hard-working, energy ministers, insists Americans are committing "a gross simplification" if they want to blame Ch?vez for $3-a-gallon gasoline this summer. "Consumers, especially Americans, have to start taking their share of responsibility for this situation," says Ram?rez, whose country is the U.S.'s fourth-largest foreign crude supplier. "The U.S.'s reckless oil consumption is turning into its own suicide. The Americans have a lot of work ahead of them with regard to energy policy." At the same time, he adds, "Americans should remember that when...
...Venezuela may have another reason to celebrate at this week's meeting, which will be held on Thursday before Ch?vez takes OPEC delegates to El Salto Angel, the world's highest waterfall, in southeast Venezuela. The country, which has about 78 billion barrels of proven crude reserves, also sits atop an estimated 275 billion barrels of heavy crude, which new technology has allowed to become more refinable and, as a result, a more legitimate addition to a nation's reserves. Should OPEC ratify Venezuela's heavy crude as bona fide reserves, the country would eclipse Saudi Arabia (260 billion barrels...