Word: citgo
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...have a lot of work ahead of them with regard to energy policy." At the same time, he adds, "Americans should remember that when your Congress asked the international oil companies last fall to step up and provide subsidized heating fuel oil to poor residents in the U.S., only Citgo" - the oil firm owned by the Venezuelan government - "did so, despite the enormous profits the U.S. oil companies are making today...
...result, it?s growing well beyond its original scope: Philadelphia, Boston, the Bronx and cities in Maine, Vermont and Rhode Island have received a total of 45 million gallons of the subsidized Citgo fuel, and other cities are slated for another 5 million soon. That?s a small percentage of the heating oil Venezuela exports to the U.S. each year, but Citgo says it has set aside about 10% of its refined petroleum products for the program. Says Larry Birns, director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs in Washington, D.C., "Unfortunately for the Bush Administration, Chavez is proving...
...also good business thinking, says Venezuela?s Ambassador to the U.S., Bernardo Alvarez, one of the program?s architects. When 13 U.S. Senators sent a letter to major U.S. oil companies last fall seeking heating fuel aid for lower-income residents in northern states, Citgo - a subsidiary of the state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) - was the only one to step forward. "The U.S. is our biggest [oil export] customer," says Alvarez. "PDVSA is simply responding to that client the way any company should...
...ploy to take consumers? minds off of record high oil prices, which are partly a result of his efforts to rebuild the power of OPEC, of which Venezuela is a founding member. Alvarez insists crude prices in the 1990s were "unfairly low" for producers like Venezuela - but says the Citgo program does give Chavez a chance to showcase "one of our revolution?s most important principles: the redistribution of oil revenues, especially for the poor." He adds it also reflects "the kind of cooperation mechanism we?re using with our neighbor countries in Latin America." Many of them - especially Cuba...
...Amidst those tensions, says Alvarez, the Citgo program is proof that Chavez?s revolution is still fond of Americans, if not their government. (Citgo, Chavez aides point out, is also a NASCAR sponsor.) "We?ll continue to support a people whose government is hostile to us," says Alvarez. "We have nothing against this country." Venezuelans and Americans might feel that way, but for the moment it seems that no amount of heating oil, no matter how deeply discounted, could thaw the enmity between their two governments...