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US to switch oil providers if Venezuela cuts supplies: US Ambassador
The United States will buy crude from another country if Venezuela follows through on President Hugo Chavez's threat to cut off supplies, the US ambassador to Caracas said in interviews with local media.
This is the blessing I have been waiting from to get rid of that asshole!!!!
Why don't we start now? Why wait for Hugo to do something stoopid?
Venezuela supplies the US market with 1.5 million barrels of crude a day -- about 15 percent of its crude needs, or nearly as much as Saudi Arabia supplies to the United States. Chavez has threatened to cut off that supply if there is any US "aggression," such as a military invasion or an attempt on his life. "If the United States does not buy oil from Venezuela, it will buy it from another country," US Ambassador William Brownfield said in an interview with Globovision television news. He gave a similar assessment in interviews with local newspapers that were published on Saturday.

Chavez, traveling in India , renewed charges on Saturday that Washington was trying to kill him. "There is in the US ... a plan to assassinate me," Chavez said in New Delhi, where he signed a major oil agreement under which India will take a 49 percent stake in a Venezuelan oil field. "If anything happens to me, the responsibility will be with the president of the United States (George W. Bush)," said Chavez, on the second day of a four-day visit to India . The leftist-populist president has warned that any bid to kill him would result in the halting of Venezuela's oil shipments to the United States. In Caracas, Brownfield acknowledged that a suspension of Venezuelan imports would initially "distort" the US economy, but dismissed it as a minor blip. "In the end, a free market can accommodate such a distortion," he said. Washington wants to maintain its current relationship with Caracas, Brownfield said, adding that the White House is "analyzing options" in the event that there is a cut in supplies. Venezuela is the lone South American member of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries.
"Okay, Dick. What are our options in the event there's a cut in Venezuelan oil supplies?"
"Well, we can kill him. We can arrest him. Or we can accomodate him. Or we can ignore it."
"What're the odds on each?"
"I'd say 60, 40, 0 and 0. What do you think, George?"
"I'd say more like 70, 30, 0 and 0."

Posted by: TMH 2005-03-06
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=58186