MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

US oil appetite behind rift with Washington, claims Chavez

The main motive for the rift with United States are the huge hydrocarbons resources of Venezuela which the country wishes to share with the people of the Caribbean, Central America and South America, alleged president Hugo Chavez.

"What does the US want? They want to make sure energy resources to fuel their irrational development model which at the same time brings underdevelopment and misery to the rest of the planet", said president Chavez during a phone interview with the South American regional television news company, Telesur which was launched last Sunday.

Alleging that United States wants to virtually take over all of Venezuela's resources, Mr. Chavez said that "Venezuelans are determined to say no to that pretension and will stand behind that NO".

"We Venezuelans wish to continue supplying them with energy, but not only to the big US corporations, or the US government?we want to share our huge oil and gas reserves with the peoples of the Caribbean, Central and South America", he added.

President Chavez revealed during the interview that Venezuela's reserves are over 300 billion barrels which he wants to invest in the economic and social development of the Latinamerican people.

"This is the purpose behind Petrosur, Petro-Caribe and Petro-Andina, and the peoples of Latinamerica should know about it", he emphasized referring to the regional energy companies created with Venezuelan sponsoring.

However Venezuelan opposition argues President Chavez is selling oil below world prices or under preferential deals simply for political reasons.

"These are very important regional companies, with Venezuelan solidarity because there are many Latinamericans who do not have access to electricity and whole cities in the region suffer blackouts", he emphasized.

"There's a world energy crisis. All our peoples must know that Venezuela in spite of the century long irrational exploitation by international corporations and US imperialism, we still have the world's main oil reserves and the continent's main natural gas deposits".

Bilateral relations with United States in the six years since President Chavez took office have been characterized by continuous accusations, recriminations with several peaks of tension. However political tension peaks have not affected trade and the close economic links particularly regarding the oil industry.

Venezuela is the world's fifth crude exporter and the fourth main supplier of oil to United States.