ruben.maritime

CARACAS 04 December – Hugo Chavez has won the mandate to remain as president of Venezuela for a further six years. With nearly 80% of the votes counted, the fierce Anti-US socialist secured 61%; governor Manuel Rosales, the candidate of a fractured opposition, was far behind. Chavez claimed his victory was "another defeat for the devil who tries to dominate the world", referring to President Bush. International observers said the polls were held without disturbance. Venezuela, the world's fifth largest oil exporter and the only Latin American member of OPEC, has proven oil resources of about 78Bn barrels of crude and an output of about 2.5M b/d. It is also the third largest exporter of oil to the US but daily production has declined and needs huge investments to return to the level seen before the disruptive 2002-2003 strike. Oil revenues boosted economic growth, by 18% in 2004, 9.3% last year and forecast of more than 10% for 2006. However, critics say Chavez has diverted oil company PDVSA's revenues to finance social programmes instead of re-investing in improving oil production. PDVSA has an ambitious 2006-2012 growth plan to raise production to more than 5M b/d and increase natural gas extraction to 11.5Bn cubic feet/day through investments of $56Bn.

 

Etiquetas: international maritime affairs, oil, politics

This entry was posted on lunes, diciembre 04, 2006 at 6:01 p. m.. You can skip to the end and leave a response.