Chavez Tones Down High Price Rhetoric.

Perhaps this should explain why, after a visit to Recife, site of a Brazilian refinery being built to process Venezuelan crude oil, President Hugo Chavez on March 28 said Caracas was no longer interested in seeing oil prices rise and was pushing to stabilise the market. It was a departure for OPEC's leading price hawk who consistently opposed output increases.

At a joint news conference with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Chavez said: "We are not interested in seeing the oil prices continuing to rise. We want to contribute to the stabilisation of the prices". He said Venezuela had pushed in the past for a system to keep prices within a band, and that it worked for three years until the invasion of Iraq "pulverised it". Chavez, who until recently used to gloat over US economic woes, said he hoped the American economy would recover soon to keep the rest of the world from being affected. (Venezuela is a major supplier of oil to the US). On March 26, Chavez said Caracas was prepared to provide billions of dollars to help build the 200,000 b/d refinery at Recife, slated to begin operating in 2010.