From the BBC's perspective:Citgo, Venezuela's Texas-based oil subsidiary, has suspended its scheme to provide cheap heating oil to thousands of low-income families in the US. The programme is being halted because of falling world oil prices, the group that administers the scheme said.
The Venezuelan government says that since 2005, some 220,000 poor families in the US have benefited.
When the scheme was launched, critics said it was a publicity stunt by the Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Citgo, the US refining arm of the Venezuelan state energy company PDVSA, distributed fuel to communities in 23 states, including Massachusetts, Ohio and Pennsylvania, at a 40% discount. The scheme amounted to some $100m (£68m) of heating oil last year.
Joseph Kennedy of Citizens Energy, the charitable organisation that administers the scheme, said it had become a casualty of the fall in the global oil price. "The current economic meltdown," he said, "has forced Citgo to re-evaluate all the assistance programnes that they provide."
| Yup, they put a Kennedy in charge ... |
Except pay for it YOURSELF out of your unearned wealth....
It is probably the Venezuelan government's highest profile cutback to date as a result of the low oil price and it will provide Mr Chavez's critics with ammunition for their argument that such schemes were a misuse of the country's oil resources, says the BBC's Will Grant in Caracas.
Do you use knee pads, Mr. Grant, or is the pain part of the joy of servicing commies?
From the Wall Street Journal's perspective:
Citgo Petroleum Corp., a U.S. refiner owned by the Venezuelan government, will stop giving free home heating oil to poor U.S. households, as plummeting energy prices cut into Venezuela's revenue. Former U.S. Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II said Venezuela would stop deliveries to his Boston-based nonprofit Citizens' Energy, which received $100 million of fuel last winter for low-income households across the Northeast. Citgo and the Venezuelan government declined to comment.
The Venezuelan gummint declined to comment? What, they couldn't find a way to blame Bush?
The donations were part of a larger effort by Venezuela to use oil revenue to gain support at home and abroad.
Let's see how many "friends" you have when you can't buy them, Oogo
In 2007, Venezuela donated $7.8 billion to Cuba, which some analysts say is approximately equivalent to what Cuba received from the United Soviet Socialist Republics during the Cold War.
The oil-fueled spending could slow. The Venezuelan government calculated its annual budget of $78 billion for 2009 using an oil-price forecast of $60 per barrel, almost twice the current $32.14 per barrel for Venezuelan crude.
Oops
Venezuela central bank said it held $42 billion in reserves at the end of 2008 -- up 25 percent from 2007 and the highest level on record -- because of high oil prices through most of the year.
And Oogo will spend it in a month. Welcome to real life, idiots.