New York Times, April 7, 2000
Venezuelan Calls Tune in OPEC's Price Tactics
By LARRY ROHTER
CARACAS, Venezuela, April 6 -- For helping to engineer the spectacular rise
in oil prices over the last year, fellow members of the Organization of
Petroleum Exporting Countries have rewarded him with the group's presidency.
Now Alí Rodríguez Araque, Venezuela's minister of energy, faces the
daunting task of stabilizing prices at a level that both producers and
consumers will find acceptable.
Mr. Rodríguez's sudden emergence as OPEC's public face is just one sign of
the higher profile in international energy affairs that Venezuela is
vigorously seeking. Since President Hugo Chávez took office 14 months ago,
this nation of 23 million people, the largest exporter of oil outside the
Middle East and the leading supplier to the United States in recent years,
has gone from lamb to lion on oil matters.
"Under this government, Venezuela has been tremendously assertive, showing
that we have our own identity and our own way of doing things," said Alan
J. Viergutz, a former president of the Venezuelan Oil Chamber, the main
industry group here. "That stands in complete contrast to the previous
government, which if not anti-OPEC did not believe in OPEC solidarity."
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At first glance, Mr. Rodríguez may seem an odd choice to be overseeing the
calibration of supply and demand for a commodity that is essential to
modern global capitalism. He was active in a Cuban-inspired guerrilla group
in the 1960's and is still a member of a party that is on the far left
fringe of Mr. Chávez's coalition.
Eventually, though, he abandoned armed revolutionary struggle and, equipped
with a law degree earned in 1961, entered conventional politics. It was
after being elected to the lower house of the Venezuelan Congress in 1983
that his interest in oil policy blossomed. He gradually rose to chairman of
that body's energy committee and became a member of the National Energy
Council.
"Alí is entirely the contrary of the image or stereotype you would have of
a guerrilla fighter," said Dr. Viergutz, who is president of an oil
investment company and helped develop the oil band concept. "He is a very
flexible, prudent and open-minded person, and though he may have been a
Communist, he has come to see there are other economic systems besides the
state-oriented model."
Legislation has been introduced in the United States Congress to punish oil
producers for driving up gasoline prices, a move interpreted here as
specifically aimed at Venezuela. OPEC's decision in Vienna to increase
output by 1.7 million barrels a day appears to have headed off an immediate
showdown, but even so there are other areas in which conflict between the
United States and Venezuela may be looming.
As part of the higher profile in world energy policy it has been seeking,
the Chávez government has sought and been granted an OPEC heads of state
meeting, scheduled to be held here in September. Mr. Chávez has a tour of
the Mideast scheduled for June, and he is expected to personally invite two
of Washington's most bitter enemies, the Libyan leader, Muammar el-Qaddafi,
and President Saddam Hussein of Iraq, to attend the conference.
In addition, the state oil company, acting on Mr. Chávez's orders, has
expressed interest in investing in the Cuban oil industry. If it does, oil
analysts here have pointed out, it will almost certainly run afoul of
United States legislation that calls for sanctions against foreign
companies that make use of American assets nationalized in Cuba without
compensation.
"Venezuela has always been a major oil producer and exporter," a foreign
oil analyst here said. "What has changed is that this government is now
prepared to use that weight to become a major player on the international
scene."
Louis Proyect
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